


Why Do They Want Us Dead?

by NicoAndTheNineGalaxies



Series: Why Do They Want Us Dead? [1]
Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Angst, F/M, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Misunderstandings, Somewhat slow burn?, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide, Suicide Attempt, This is not happy at all, Ukuleles, i lied earlier in the tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-18
Updated: 2018-08-24
Packaged: 2019-04-24 15:48:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 21
Words: 21,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14358633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NicoAndTheNineGalaxies/pseuds/NicoAndTheNineGalaxies
Summary: Who is Blurryface, and why does (s)he want them dead?They've personified their demons, because it's easier to fight against someone that isn't you.But it might not be enough.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello friends!  
> This was barely going to be a fanfiction at first, but then I got an idea and decided to just run with it. So I’ve got some stuff planned for this and I hope you’ll all like it :)  
> Galaxy |-/

God, I hate her.

But it isn’t like I can get her to go away, is it? She’s a part of me. She’s in my head, literally.

Songs help. Writing them, that is. And poems.

It’s easier to fight your demons when you think you can actually talk to them, and that’s why I spend so much time talking to ‘myself.’ She’s a different part of me, the part that believes what everyone else says and wants me to believe it, too. It’s hard sometimes, though. I hate going into my bathroom, I feel like I’ll see the razor and just…

You know, I’d rather not finish that sentence.

“What are you doing?” I hear her ask me.

“Nothing,” I say, pulling my laptop closer to hide what I’m writing. That I’m writing about her.

“Oh, my God,” she says with a laugh. “Are you actually…? Wow. I’d say you were hilarious if you weren’t so pathetic.”

“Shut up, Blurryface,” I mutter.

“Don’t call me that,” she snaps, her eyes darkening. “It’s not my name.”

“As long as I don’t know your real name, I’m calling you Blurryface,” I reply harshly. This is one of our pettiest arguments. She won’t tell me her name. She never does. It seems like she just shows up to make my day miserable.

She rolls her eyes. “Whatever. I hope you die. We’d all be better off without you.”

I meet her gaze steadily and snap the hair tie on my wrist.

She scowls.

I smile.

I’ve learned to appreciate my little victories.

 

I bite into my apple, sulking silently, and round the corner to the stairs, and suddenly she’s by my side again.

“They wouldn’t care, you know,” she tells me. “Wouldn’t want to know how you felt.”

“Even if - ?”

“Even if it would help you,” she answers before I can finish my sentence. “They still wouldn’t want to know."

I sigh, staring at the ground as I find my way by memory to my math classroom. “Life freaking sucks sometimes.”

“So it does,” Blurryface says quietly. “So it does.”

 

I’m out riding my new bike.

She’s sitting on the back of it, just behind me, and leaning forward to chatter annoyingly in my ear.

“It’d be so easy to just swerve into the road right now. Or now. Look how thin the sidewalk is. Everyone would think it was an accident and no one would be any worse.”

“No, I’ve got a friend coming over later,” I interrupt after a moment. “She doesn’t want to be around while her parents have people over, remember?”

Blurry scoffs. “Please. She just doesn’t want to be around people. Why should you be any different?”

“Because she’s my friend.”

“No, she’s not. She hates you.”

I pedal faster, almost obsessively. “No, she doesn’t. Shut up.”

“You can’t outrun a demon if they’re in your head,” Blurry says in a singsong voice. “Seriously, I thought you were at least smart. I mean, sure, you’re ugly, talentless, friendless, and pathetic, but I thought you at least had your brain. Huh, you surprise me every day, don’t you?”

“You know nothing about me or my friends,” I snap.

Blurry laughs. “Aw, you’re so stupid. I’m in your head, sweetie. I’m you. And that means I know everything you do.”

 

“That is it,” Blurry snaps the second my door closes. “You’re ridiculously pathetic, you know that? Why the heck are you about to cry? Because you don’t know how to do something and no one else is helping you? They aren’t helping because they don’t want to. They don’t care.”

“I’m not about to cry. Shut up,” I manage to say, even though I feel like I can’t breathe. I don’t even know why. Maybe it’s all the yelling - either my parents at my brother, not even realizing when I sneak out of the room, or Blurry yelling at me, telling me everything that I don’t want to hear.

“Oh, you can’t breathe? I can help with that. If you just stop breathing, you won’t have to worry about whether you can or can’t breathe. Easy fix.”

“I don’t want your help,” I mutter.

“So whose help do you want?” Blurry demands. “Your family has no idea how messed up you are, and there’s no way you’re going to tell them if you can barely talk to them in the best of times. And everyone at your school already knows who you’re supposed to be. Do you want to show them who you really are? Because I think that’d be embarrassing to the both of us.”

I sigh. “Okay, I get it. But I still don’t want your help.”

“One of these days you’re going to realize,” Blurry says, almost sadly, “I’m all you’ve got.”

 

“This isn’t the original version, it’s a cover,” I say as a new song comes on the radio. I listen for a moment. “I prefer the original version.”

“Oh, you mean the one where they can’t play guitar at all?” My brother asks.

I shoot him a glare before stalking to the bathroom, but after a second I hear Blurryface at the door.

“You’re an idiot. They all hate you. Why’d you say anything about that stupid song?”

I sigh. This is what she does, she latches onto the most ridiculous things and tears me apart with them.

“You could do it right now. They wouldn’t care. They wouldn’t miss you.”

I clench my fist, ignore her as best I can, and snap the hair tie on my wrist. 

She hears it through the door and mutters something that sounds suspiciously like “stupid thing.”

She hates that hair tie.

So I smile to myself and run my hands under cold water in the sink until she leaves.


	2. Chapter 2

I sit alone at lunch that entire week.

Well, not entirely alone. I have Blurry for company, but she isn’t very good at holding polite conversation.

On Friday, a boy that looks around my age approaches the table shyly. No one ever does that. I’m a social outcast.

“There’s not really anywhere else to sit,” he says quietly, looking embarrassed. “And I don’t wanna have to go sit in the hallway again.”

I nod silently and gesture for him to sit. He thanks me before eating his lunch quickly, gathering his things, and disappearing.

The boy is back on Monday. And then again on Tuesday. Wednesday, too. I’m reading a new book I bought over the weekend, one that Blurry mocked immediately upon seeing the title, saying it sounded too childish.

I did my best to ignore her, but I only read it when I thought no one was looking.

The boy is looking.

“What are you reading?” He asks, sounding genuinely curious.

I show him the cover, and he smiles a bit. “I’ve read that one. It’s good, isn’t it?”

“Good?” Blurry scoffs. “Have you joined some losers’ club I was unaware of?”

“Shut up,” I mutter.

The boy shrinks back, and I jump. I forgot he was here.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs, closing his eyes. His head twitches to the side, and a conflicted look flashes across his face. “Stop.”

“I wasn’t talking to you,” I say hurriedly. “I wasn’t, I promise. You were just asking about the book. I’m sorry.”

“Who were you talking to, then?” He asks.

“No one,” I say, shooting a quick sideways glare at Blurry. Like she always loves to remind me, she’s in my head. She knows everything I do. And that means no one else knows she’s there.

“Maybe I should go,” the boy says, looking a little bit confused at my strange behavior. Confused, and perhaps a little bit scared.

I open my mouth, about to object to him leaving, but then think better of it. I barely know this kid.

“Are you really desperate enough to ask him to stay?” Blurry asks me.

I sigh before turning to the boy. “Yeah, okay. I’ll be staying here. You’re welcome to sit here again, if you want to.”

He nods and leaves without another word.

“He’s not going to come back,” Blurry says once the boy disappears around the corner.

“So what?” I ask harshly. “It’s not like I actually knew him.”

Blurry smiles. “He was the first person to approach you in, what, months? I thought you’d be more desperate.”

I am desperate. The boy may not have said much, but it was nice just to have someone willingly sit there, even if we sat in silence.

But there’s no way I’m going to let Blurry know that.

 

Thursday, Friday, Monday, and Tuesday are lonely. I barely say a word to anyone.

On Wednesday, though, the boy arrives again.

“Sorry,” he says, his voice hardly more than a whisper, as he drops his bag and sits down in the seat across from me, pulling out a copy of the same book I was reading last week.

I expect a comment from Blurry, but she stays oddly silent.

“I was acting weird,” I say, my voice just as quiet as his. “I’m sorry. There’s just - I’m not exactly normal.”

He smiles slightly. “That’s good, because I’m not normal either.”

I return the smile, feeling a bit more relaxed. “I’m Ruthie.”

“Tyler,” he replies with a laugh. “Sitting together at lunch for four days and I never thought to ask your name.”

I shrug. “I don’t really talk much anyway. I didn’t mind.”

“So…who are you, exactly?” Tyler asks curiously, picking at his lunch.

“Do you mean, like, my impact on the workings of this school, or my hobbies or something?”

“Both, I guess,” Tyler replies after a moment.

“Oh. Okay.” I think briefly. “Well, I do virtually nothing here. I mean, the only difference if I left is that half the grade would have to find someone else to mock.”

Tyler nods sympathetically. “Like Tom?”

“Yeah, him,” I agree. “But, I mean, outside of school I mostly like literature, music, that sort of thing. Forensics, too, they’re pretty cool. I’m not really that interesting.”

Tyler shrugs. “You seem interesting enough.”

I smile. “What about you?”

“Really the same. I’m typically pretty quiet, so no one pays much attention to me. I like music too, what sort of things do you listen to?”

“It varies,” I say. “There’s a few songs by Fall Out Boy and Panic! At The Disco that I really like, but other than that it’s pretty hard to pinpoint my music tastes.”

“Do you play anything?”

“Guitar, mostly,” I answer. “Ukulele. A little bit of piano. I sing, too.”

“You sing?” Tyler asks, perking up immediately. “Same! Ukulele and piano, too! Not guitar, though.”

“That’s pretty neat,” I say with a grin. “Ukuleles are cool.”

“So are guitars.” Tyler’s smiling now as well.

“Do you write anything?” I ask. I feel less alone now that I’m talking to Tyler, which helps a bit. I suppose the question is just a way of trying to find some other way that he’s like me.

“I write a little,” he says after a moment, suddenly seeming embarrassed. “Nothing good.”

“I bet it’s great,” I assure him.

“What about you?”

I shrug. “Yeah, I write. Poems, stories, songs, whatever helps. It varies from moment to moment. Then again, so does everything else about me.”

Blurry seems to have found her voice again, though. “Don’t get too personal, you idiot. He probably hates you just as much as everyone else here.”

I clench my hands into fists, close my eyes, and turn my head away from her.

I barely notice when Tyler starts talking again. “Ruthie? Are you okay?”

I hold up a hand to stop him. “Stop. Just…give me a moment.”

“Great going,” Blurry mutters in my ear. “He must think you’re crazy now. You need to just shut up before he - “

“No, you need to shut up,” I whisper fiercely, trying to be quiet so Tyler doesn’t hear me talking to myself.

“Fine, I’ll shut up. But if I don’t help you, things are just going to get worse.”

I shake my head and open my eyes, slowly relaxing. “I’m sorry,” I say to Tyler. “Really sorry. That was…”

“Is that a regular occurrence?” Tyler asks.

“What?”

“You…talking to yourself like that. How often does that happen?”

I try to look nonchalant. “Almost daily, I guess. I think too much. I kind of get lost, almost.”

“Inside your own head?” Tyler asks. But he doesn’t seem like he’s judging me. He seems more surprised.

“Yeah,” I say. “There’s always a lot happening in my head, it’s distracting.”

“I think I get that,” Tyler says, nodding.

I’m surprised for a moment. “Well, thank God. No one else does. I’m just an outcast here.”

“Maybe we could be outcasts together,” Tyler suggests. “Musical outcasts.”

“Sounds like a band name,” I joke.

“Nah, if I was going to make a band, it’d be called Twenty One Pilots,” Tyler says. “Like in All My Sons, how twenty-one pilots died?”

I nod. “Thoughtful. I like it.”

“But I’m probably never going to do that,” Tyler says with a sigh. “I mean, with school and everything else that I have to deal with…”

“Like what?” I ask.

“It’s nothing,” he says, almost too quickly. “I just…I’ve got some issues, I guess. All that plus school means I don’t have much time to write songs or play anything, even if I don’t have much of a social life.”

“Does the songwriting help?” I ask suddenly. “With those - those issues. Does it help you deal with them?”

Tyler looks a bit surprised at the question. “Yeah.”

“It’s kind of the same for me. Music comes from emotion, emotion comes from our thoughts, and our thoughts come from events or even other thoughts. Maybe that’s why the people that think too much are often the ones that write.”

“Maybe,” Tyler agrees.

And the two of us, the musical outcasts, talk at lunch each day for the rest of that week, and the next, and then the next. I can’t help but notice that every now and then he does a similar thing, where he seems as if he’s talking to someone that isn’t really there.

We’ve been something like friends for a month and a half when I decide to ask about it.

“Who are you talking to when you do that?”

“D-do what?” Tyler asks, sounding more nervous than normal.

“You look to the side, mutter some things. What is it?”

Tyler sighs. “It’s nothing. Please don’t ask about it.”

I almost ask again. But the look on his face tells me not to. He doesn’t like talking about it.

Blurry keeps warning me that he hates me. But I try to ignore her.

It hurts, though. I try my hardest, but I still hear her.

Every single word.

I don’t know how much longer I can do this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See, I told you I had an idea!  
> This fic is pretty directionless at this point, though. I mean, I have some vague ideas but nothing more than that, updates will be somewhat short but quite frequent since I just can’t stop writing this!  
> Galaxy |-/


	3. Chapter 3

I sit down at my usual table, humming a song I wrote last night under my breath.

“What song is that?” Tyler asks.

“Oh, I wrote it,” I say with a smile.

“Sounds sad,” Tyler notes.

“It’s called ‘Listen,’” I continue, as if he hadn’t said a word.

“You always tell me the names of your songs, but you never show them to me,” Tyler complains.

“You do the exact same thing,” I counter.

Suddenly a voice yells from across the cafeteria.

“Hey, no - you guys are being really rude, you know that? No, I’m not - okay, whatever, goodbye.” The voice grows quieter on the last few words.

I look around until I find the source, a boy with hair dyed a bright, vibrant red. He’s walking away from the group he normally sits with, and it looks like he’s crying.

“Is he okay?” Tyler asks quietly.

“I doubt it,” I reply, standing from my chair. After a moment’s hesitation I grab my notebook. Tom tried to steal it from me once and I haven’t let it out of my sight since. “I’ll be right back, okay?”

“Ruthie, wait,” Tyler says. “What if he just acts like everybody else?”

“Well, nobody else calls their friends out like that for being rude,” I say. “Anyway, if we don’t take some chances every once in a while, life is going to get really boring, really fast.”

Before he can protest, I disappear around the corner and push open the door to one of the stairwells. They’re always deserted, but I can hear someone crying.

“Is something wrong?” I ask, my voice echoing faintly.

The crying grows quieter, replaced by soft sniffles. “No, I’m fine.”

Holding onto the handrail, I slowly lean forward until I can peek under the stairs and see the boy with bright red hair.

“Wow,” I say. “Running off to hide under the stairs and cry? You could be in a soap opera.”

He grins. “Yeah, yeah, I know I’m being dramatic. I’m just sick of them, you know?”

“Given that I’m sick of everyone at this school except Tyler, I’m going to guess I agree with you.” I sit down cross-legged in front of him. “What did they do to get you to snap like that? You made a bit of a scene.”

“They just…okay, they’ve always been jerks. There’s these two kids they always talk about…but I just kind of tolerated them. I feel really bad about it. But today…” The boy takes a deep breath. “One of them noticed that I was getting frustrated with them, and they started making fun of me instead. I just hate dealing with them, but I don’t really have anyone else.”

“Well, that sucks,” I say bluntly.

“Yeah, it does,” he says with a smile. “So who are you?”

“I’m Ruthie Williams.”

His eyes widen. “Oh. Oh, geez. Um…you’re one of the kids they talk about.”

I don’t say anything for a moment, just processing what he said.

“Oh, my God, I’m so sorry, I should - “

“No, it’s fine,” I assure him. “I’m used to it. Most of the kids here are idiots, I know that by now. Anyway, who are you?”

“Uh, Josh Dun,” the boy replies.

“I like your hair,” I say.

“Thanks,” Josh says, laughing. “Listen, I’ll be fine here, if you want to…to go.”

“No, it’s okay,” I protest. “Seriously. If you want, you can come hang out with me and Tyler.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, of course. Come on, you can’t just cry under the stairs for the rest of lunch. Did you even finish eating?”

Josh shakes his head.

“You don’t have any of your stuff with you either.”

“I forgot it, I guess.”

“Come on, I’ll show you where we’re sitting and then we can go get your bag and your lunch, okay?”

“Okay, great,” Josh says, sounding enthusiastic.

“I really do like your hair,” I say as we’re walking back.

Josh laughs.

Tyler glances up from an intense conversation he seems to be having with thin air. Relief floods his gaze when he sees me. “Ruthie!”

“Hey, Tyler,” I say, sitting back down in my chair. “This is Josh, he’s going to be joining us for a bit.”

“Great,” Tyler says with a smile. “Nice to meet you, Josh. You want to sit here?” He gestures to the empty chair next to him.

“Yeah, sure.” Josh hesitates. “I need to go get my bag.” His gaze catches on his former friends’ table. He looks concerned.

“Is something wrong?” Tyler asks.

“I don’t want to go over there again,” Josh mutters.

“It’s okay,” Tyler blurts out. “Ruthie and I can go.”

“Oh. Okay, sure, if you’re willing to do that. I’d really appreciate it,” Josh says, offering us a smile.

Tyler and I walk around the edges of the cafeteria, only daring to venture out when we reach the table Josh had been sitting at.

One boy looks up at us and laughs. “Guys, hey guys, it’s the freaks!”

They all jeer. I just roll my eyes and walk straight up to the only empty seat at the table, Josh’s bag next to it. “Yeah, whatever. We’re just here to get Josh’s bag.”

“If you can be quiet about it, we won’t bug you,” the first boy says.

I grab Josh’s backpack and hand it to Tyler before grabbing his lunch box. “Come on, let’s go,” I mutter.

We leave to more jeers.

“It seems,” I begin as we walk away, “that no matter how hard we try to stay unnoticed, we still stand out.”

Tyler grimaces. “That’s unfortunate. I feel kind of bad for dragging Josh into our crazy lives.”

“If he wants to leave, he will, I’m sure,” I say.

We reach our table and Josh grins. “Thanks.”

“No problem, really,” I tell him.

“Did they give you a hard time?”

“Not as much as you would’ve thought,” I say.

Tyler sits back in his chair quietly, looking thoughtful.

“So, um…what do you guys do for fun?”

I look at Tyler, half expecting him to answer first. When it becomes apparent that he’s not going to, I decide to answer instead.

“I’m mostly into literature and music.”

Josh’s eyes light up. “Music, that’s great. Playing or just listening?”

“Both. Mostly playing, though, because it’s like listening to something that you made.”

“Neat,” Josh says. “I play drums and listen to a bunch of different things. What instruments do you play?”

“Guitar, ukulele, a bit of piano. I sing, too.”

Josh smiles and nods. “That’s pretty cool. Tyler, what about you?”

Tyler seems to have zoned out. He’s staring unblinkingly at one point on the table.

Josh glances at me. “Is he okay?”

“Yeah, he’s fine. He and I both think a lot. This happens occasionally.” I turn to Tyler. “Hey, Tyler.”

His gaze snaps up to meet mine. “What? Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” I assure him. “Josh wants to know what you do for fun.”

“Sorry,” Tyler says again, this time glancing at Josh.

“Really, it’s fine,” Josh says with a reassuring smile. “I’m guessing you’ve got a lot on your mind.”

Tyler nods.

“Do you want to talk about anything?” Josh asks. He’s very polite about it, too - the tone of his voice doesn’t come across as forcing Tyler to talk to him.

Tyler nods again, seeming a bit more at ease. “I mostly just play music.”

“What instruments?”

“Ukulele and piano. I also sing.”

“I play drums,” Josh says, still smiling. “I don’t do much else, though. I’m pretty boring.”

“You seem cool,” Tyler replies quietly. “And you don’t hate us. That’s always good.”

Josh laughs. “Yeah, that is a key quality in a friend.”

Tyler smiles just a little bit. I’m not surprised he’s so shy - he gets nervous around new people - but I can tell Josh is trying hard to make him feel a little more comfortable.

“You okay?” I whisper when Josh is pulling things out of his lunch box.

He nods. “Just a little…anxious, that’s all.”

“I can do the talking for both of us, if you want. Just so we can see what he’s like.”

Tyler offers me a small smile. “Thanks.”

I pat his hand reassuringly. “Try not to get lost in your own head again, okay?”

“So,” Josh says, turning his attention back to us. His gaze falls on my hand resting on Tyler’s. “Oh, are you two - ?”

Tyler’s face immediately flushes a similar shade of red to Josh’s hair. He stutters something indecipherable and glances at me.

“No,” I cut in. “We are definitely not dating. I'm a lesbian."

“Sorry,” Josh apologizes quickly. “Just seemed like you guys were…having a moment.”

“We both get kind of nervous around people,” I explain. “We help each other, you know?”

“Okay,” Josh says, nodding. “That makes sense. Right, sorry for assuming.”

“It’s fine,” I tell him. Tyler still looks too embarrassed to speak.

“Sorry,” Josh says quietly, this time talking to Tyler rather than both of us.

“It’s okay,” Tyler manages.

“You sure?”

Tyler nods, but then pauses. His head twitches to the side, as if he’s listening to something.

“Tyler,” I say cautiously.

With what appears to be great effort, he pulls his gaze away from the chair next to him.

“I’m fine,” he says. “I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m fine.”

He sounds more like he’s trying to convince himself than to convince us.

Josh glances at me.

I shake my head, a silent indicator that he shouldn’t say anything.

Josh clears his throat. “Uh, okay. If you’re sure.”

“I’m sure,” Tyler insists. After a moment, staring down at the ground, he adds a quiet, “thank you, though.”

Tyler doesn’t talk for the rest of lunch.

Josh and I don’t say much, either.

 

The next day Tyler is still pretty quiet.

At lunch, I notice him glance up, almost hopefully, when someone approaches.

He breaks into a grin. “Josh!”

I can feel a smile on my own face at his reaction. He's like an excited child.

“Hey,” Josh says, running a hand through his bright red hair almost shyly. “Uh, would you guys mind if I sat with you again?”

“Not at all!” Tyler exclaims, pulling out the chair next to him.

Josh sits down, a relieved smile on his face. “Thanks.”

Tyler’s smiling more than I’ve seen him smile since I met him, really. I think he’s rather fond of Josh.

“Do you know what my old ‘friends’ did after school yesterday?” Josh asks after a moment, putting air quotes around the word ‘friends.’

“No,” Tyler says. “What?”

“They put me on a group Skype call and tried to apologize,” Josh says dramatically, “but their apology was riddled with insults and stupidity. Just like everything else they do,” he adds with a laugh.

“Of course,” I say with a smirk and a sigh.

Tyler seems content to just smile and go back to eating his lunch.

“So how are you guys?” Josh asks.

“I’m good,” I say evenly. ‘Good?’ As if. Blurry seems to have recovered from the shock of me making another friend, and she was back full-force last night. I was lucky to get those four hours of sleep.

Tyler studies me carefully, his brow furrowed with confusion. “I’m good, too,” he contributes, still staring at me as if I’m a puzzle.

I guess it’s hard to keep up the illusion of being fine when you look like you’re half-dead and falling asleep on your feet.

“He’s going to know something’s up,” Blurry pipes up from beside me. “Your only friend, and he’s going to freak out when he realizes just how messed up you are. He’s going to tell Josh, and then they’re both going to leave and you’re going to be alone again.

I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from replying. I can taste blood.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Josh asks.

“I’m fine,” I answer, a little too harshly. I sound an awful lot like Tyler did yesterday. I force myself to relax with a sigh. “Sorry. Josh, if you’re going to start hanging out with us, the first thing you need to know is Tyler and I are outcasts for a reason. Okay? We’re different, and we come across a little weird. If you’re willing to tolerate that, then great, welcome aboard. But if it’s going to freak you out every time we start acting a little strange, then I suggest you go find someone more normal than we are.”

Tyler looks almost as if he wants to protest, but then he nods in agreement.

“Nah, it’s okay,” Josh says after a moment of consideration. He smiles. “Yeah. You guys are different from those jerks, and I like that.”

I breathe a sigh of relief. “Okay, good. I had to get that off my chest.”

Josh nods. “I understand.”

“Sorry for ranting,” I say.

“Everyone needs to rant every now and then,” Josh says casually, waving away my apology. “I'm glad you trusted me enough to be so honest.”

I frown. “I like to think I’m a decent judge of character, but I give too many second chances, so I can never be very sure. Think ‘I Knew You Were Trouble’ kind of relationships, yeah? Knowing exactly what someone is the second they walk in, but still giving them a chance to prove you wrong. I don’t know, you struck me as one of the better ones, but I figured I’d better warn you off if you were going to be weird about it.”

Josh grins. “Did you just reference Taylor Swift?” 

I shrug. “She has some good songs. I like how her lyrics actually have meaning. My music taste tends to be pretty diverse, but as long as a song is brutally honest to the point of being painful, I’m probably going to like it.”

Josh laughs and shakes his head. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Always the meaningful lyrics,” Tyler says quietly, smiling. “But there aren’t enough of those in the music everyone listens to nowadays.”

“Don’t say it like that,” I say teasingly. “It makes you sound old.”

“Yeah, but…I mean, are you saying it’s not true?”

“Oh, no, it’s very true,” I say. “But you don’t have to sound like an eighty-year-old if you want to make a point.”

“What’s wrong with eighty-year-olds?” Tyler asks, pretending to be offended.

“Nothing!” I say with a laugh. “I’m just saying!”

Josh watches us, smiling and not even attempting to hold back his laughter. “You guys are really something, aren’t you?”

Tyler glances at Josh and blushes a bit.

“In a good way, or a bad way?” I ask.

“Good way, for sure.”

Tyler blushes more, staring down at the ground and trying not to smile.

“You, too,” I tell Josh. “Especially your hair. The red really does suit you.”

“This is the third time you’ve commented on my hair,” Josh points out.

“Great, you’ve annoyed him,” Blurry mutters.

I ignore her.

“It’s different,” I say. “Good different. Of course I’m going to comment on it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I said updates would be short.  
> I lied.  
> Sorry.  
> In case you haven’t figured it out yet, Ruthie is basically just me. I’m messed up, I’m really weird, I love brutally honest lyrics in songs, and i like things that are different in good ways. I don't know. Writing this is honestly really helpful for getting my emotions out because it's in a world that doesn't actually exist, so I can't offend or hurt anyone. I guess this is a bit of a vent fic for me, or something? Anyway.  
> Galaxy |-/


	4. Chapter 4

After two weeks, Tyler and I talk over the phone and decide that Josh would be a good member of our little group. I create a group chat on my phone so we can talk.

 

Ruthie has invited twentyonepilots and jishua.

jishua: ruthie?

Ruthie: yo

twentyonepilots: ruthie

Ruthie: yes?

twentyonepilots: is jishua josh?

jishua: that’s me  
i’m assuming you’re tyler

twentyonepilots: yeah

jishua: where’d that name come from?

Ruthie: it’s if he was going to make a band  
he’d call it twenty one pilots  
because of All My Sons

jishua: oh cool

twentyonepilots: where’d your name come from  
jish

jishua: ruthie accidentally called me jish once

Ruthie: it waS ONE TIME JOSHUA I SWEAR

jishua: *jishua not joshua  
get your facts straight  
so what’s up?

Ruthie: josh, you should know that tyler and i have made a decision

jishua: about what?

Ruthie: well you see  
our little group  
(it’s really a duo but whatever)  
is very well-established

twentyonepilots: ruthie we’ve only known each other for two months

Ruthie: yes i know  
well-established  
anyway  
josh  
we have decided that you fit perfectly in our group  
you are now an official member of the musical outcasts

twentyonepilots has renamed this group ‘Musical Outcasts.’

jishua: oh cool

twentyonepilots: welcome jishua

Ruthie: welcome

jishua: right, thanks guys

twentyonepilots: no but in all honestly i think you’re the best member of the group

Ruthie: i take offense to that

twentyonepilots: well it’s true

Ruthie: …  
yeah i guess you’re right

jishua: thanks tyler  
but ruthie’s pretty cool too

Ruthie: wrong

jishua: no really though you two are great

twentyonepilots: you’re still the best of us josh

Ruthie: he’s right josh.

jishua: seriously though, thank you guys both so much  
i can tell this group must be very exclusive  
and i’m honored to be a part of it

twentyonepilots: hey ruthie

Ruthie: yo

twentyonepilots: you might want to change your name  
to something a little more…  
you know  
you.

Ruthie: ok  
any suggestions?

jishua: maybe something to do with writing  
you write a lot

twentyonepilots: when tom tried to read her notebook i’m pretty sure she nearly killed him

Ruthie: ok i think i’ve got this

Ruthie has changed their name to melodic_poet.

melodic_poet: get it?  
songs are just poems with a tune

twentyonepilots: clever

jishua: i like it

twentyonepilots: it could mean you write songs or poems

jishua: or both

twentyonepilots: welcome melodic_poet

jishua: welcome

melodic_poet: so it’s been cool talking to you guys  
but i’ve got to go

twentyonepilots: ok, bye

jishua: bye  
thanks for letting me join your group

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This won’t be turning into one of those group chat fics, but I’ve been reading a lot of those recently and thought I might try it out. Tell me what you think!  
> Anyway, once one of my friends did try to read my notebook and I almost killed her. (If she’s reading this, sorry!!)  
> Galaxy |-/


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for a suicide attempt and self harm.  
> Stay alive, friends.  
> Galaxy |-/

(Josh’s POV)

I’ve just finished my homework on Saturday when Tyler calls me.

“Hey, Tyler,” I say when I pick up the phone. But then I hear his crying and shaky breathing. “Is everything okay?”

“J-Josh,” Tyler manages to say. “I - no, it’s not okay.”

“What is it?” I ask urgently.

“I’m sorry,” Tyler says. “I didn’t know what to do and now there’s blood and I’m sorry and I just - Josh, can you please come over? Please.”

“Yeah, of course,” I reply, concerned. Blood? “Are you - ?”

Tyler hangs up before I can finish my sentence.

Oh, my God.

Something is seriously wrong.

I don’t realize how badly my hands are shaking, just how scared I am, until my phone almost falls from my hand. I quickly pull up Ruthie’s contact and call her.

“Yeah?”

“Ruthie, there’s something wrong,” I say quickly. “It’s - it’s Tyler.”

“Tyler?” She asks sharply. “What?”

“He called me and he said something about there being blood and he asked me to come over and I just - “ I take a deep breath, trying to slow down as everything comes out in a rush. “And he kept saying he was sorry, and I’m really worried. Can you meet me at his house in, like, two minutes?”

“Yeah,” Ruthie says without hesitation. “Of course. See you.”

I shove my phone in my pocket, pull on a jacket and some shoes, and leave without telling anyone. There's no time.

It takes me a moment to realize that I’ve broken into a run. I mean, this is Tyler we’re talking about. He’s polite and kind and sure, maybe he’s a little bit eccentric and odd but I love that he texts me with random thoughts he’s had when he wakes up (or maybe he's still awake, which is more concerning than anything else) at two in the morning (maybe I love it because I’m typically still awake and I want someone to talk to). 

But I know there’s something else, something that isn’t endearing so much as it is worrying. When he comes to school with dark circles under his eyes and falls asleep in math class, as if he didn’t get any sleep the night before. When he argues with someone who isn’t even there. When his eyes are red and his smile seems fake and he leaves to go to the bathroom and looks worse when he gets back. Little things you wouldn’t notice unless you look hard enough. Little things that make me worry about him.

Do people typically worry so much about their friends?

I’m not stupid. I know most people don’t feel about their friends the way I do about Tyler. But I don’t want to say anything about it - after all, I’ve had crushes before. They were all little flings that disappeared within two months, maximum.

I want to wait to tell anyone until I’m sure.

When I get to Tyler’s house, Ruthie is already there. She must see the worry written all over my face, because she places a comforting hand on my shoulder. “Whatever’s going on, Tyler will be okay,” she assures me.

I nod. I can’t think of anything to say.

“Come on,” Ruthie says, withdrawing her hand and walking towards Tyler’s front door. It’s open, so we walk straight through and up to Tyler’s bedroom. The door is closed.

“You okay?” Ruthie asks, pausing before pushing the door open.

“I’ll be fine once I know Tyler’s okay,” I tell her.

She opens the door, revealing Tyler sitting on the ground in the middle of the room, blood and cuts covering his wrists and a knife next to him.

The sight makes me want to cry. 

If he was feeling this way, he could’ve said something before…

It’s my fault. I didn’t know. I berate myself silently in my head. I can’t believe I missed something so…so huge.

“I’m sorry,” Tyler whispers, tears trailing down his cheeks. “I’m sorry, he was saying such horrible things but all of them were true and I just wanted him to shut up - “

“Who?” I ask, already rushing to Tyler’s side to push the knife out of the way and trying to see how bad the cuts are. “Who was saying those things to you?”

“Blurryface,” Tyler murmurs. His eyes start to close, and he slumps to the ground beside me.

“Oh, no,” I mutter. “Tyler!”

“Did he just say Blurryface?” Ruthie asks, sounding faint.

“Oh, my God,” I mutter. “Okay, I’m calling an ambulance.”

“He just said Blurryface,” Ruthie says.

I quickly explain the situation to the 911 operator before hanging up and turning back to Tyler. Ruthie’s staring at the wall, an expression somewhere between empty and horrified on her face.

“Ruthie!” I snap. “I need your help!” I wince as I hear the hysterical edge in my voice.

She seems to pull back to reality and process what’s happening. “Yes. Yes, right, sorry. Um. Just a moment.” She leaves the room.

I look down at Tyler, trying not to cry. “Please be okay,” I whisper.

I know he can't hear me.

Ruthie returns a few minutes later with a towel. “His parents had better not mind if we ruin a towel to save his freaking life,” she mutters, pressing the towel to Tyler’s wrist. “He’s not moving. Not even at something that should hurt. Geez, that’s bad.”

I’ve never really seen her like this. She’s so focused.

But she seems to know what she’s doing a little too well, given the current situation.

She removes the towel from Tyler’s wrist and inspects the cuts. “He’s already lost a lot of blood and these cuts are really deep. This is not good.”

Eventually the ambulance arrives, although it feels like it’s been forever. I’m just crying at this point. I don’t even care. It’s Tyler, and it shouldn’t be like this. I should’ve seen it earlier. So I just cry.

 

I’m in the hospital waiting room. Ruthie, still in the same strange daze she’s been in since the paramedics took over her job taking care of Tyler, is sitting next to me.

Eventually she moves, glancing at me and then around at the room.

“Are you okay?” I ask her, my voice sounding dull and empty.

“Okay?” She asks, sounding almost angry but mostly numb. “Tyler’s suicidal and we missed it. We completely missed it. How come we didn't notice anything?"

“I’m sorry, it was a stupid question,” I say with a sigh. “Can I ask you something?”

Ruthie relaxes. “Yeah. Sorry, just…a lot has happened tonight.”

“A lot,” I agree. “But you reacted weirdly when Tyler said Blurryface. What was all that about? Who’s Blurryface?”

She glances at the chair next to her and mutters something before looking back at me. “Imagine if all those thoughts you ever had, the ones saying you were-were worthless, or not good enough in any way, were all said to you by another version of yourself.”

I frown. “I’m not sure I follow.”

“It’s a person,” Ruthie says, choosing her words carefully, “that essentially follows you around just to tell you how much of a failure you are. Like a voice in your head that you can never get rid of.”

“That explains what Tyler said,” I reply quietly. “Are you - you sound like you’re speaking from experience.”

“I am,” she admits. “Blurry’s - she’s always here. Always. But I didn’t know Tyler had his own.”

“But you gave them the same name?” I ask.

“Maybe it’s because you feel like you should know the face, right? Like it should be your own. But somewhere you know, somewhere deep inside, that it isn’t you. That’s why the face is blurry, because it’s supposed to be recognizable but it’s not. It’s just, it seems wrong somehow.”

“Maybe,” I say with a nod.

Suddenly a nurse hurries into the waiting room. “Josh Dun?”

I stand. “Yeah?”

“Tyler Joseph is awake. He’s asking for you.”


	6. Chapter 6

(Josh’s POV)

The nurse holds the door open for Ruthie and I. I walk in first, and Tyler, sitting up in his bed, smiles at me.

“Jishua."

I run to hug him, if somewhat awkwardly since he’s still sitting on the bed. I don’t really care though - I’m just glad he’s okay.

“Thank you,” Tyler whispers. “For showing up in time.”

“Of course, Ty,” I say, pulling away. “I was so worried about you. Why did you try to - “ My voice breaks.

“Blurryface,” Tyler replies.

I glance at Ruthie. “Who’s Blurryface?”

“He’s like…like another side of me that tells me I’m worthless. But, I mean, he’s a part of me, so I feel like I should trust him? It’s…it’s odd.”

“It’s okay, I get it,” Ruthie says from behind me. “I know what it’s like. My Blurryface is - she’s a complete nigthmare, but the point is I’ve got my own.”

“Oh.” Tyler seems relieved. “Okay. All those times you were talking to someone who wasn’t there…”

“And all those times you did the exact same thing,” Ruthie adds.

“You were talking to Blurryface.”

Ruthie nods. “How long have you been dealing with him?”

“Since everyone started pushing me away. Since I started being alone.”

“Same,” Ruthie says with a nod.

I just watch, practically mesmerized, as they connect through a casual conversation about the voices in their head telling them to kill themselves. It’s disconcerting, really, watching the two most private people I’ve ever met openly talking about why they’re so closed off.

Now I know about why Tyler seems hurt. And for some reason I feel obligated to protect him, even though I can’t really protect him from his own head.

But I can always try.

 

I stay at the hospital for a while. Tyler ends up falling asleep, but still I stay. I guess I lose track of the time, thinking hard.

I was absolutely panicked when I saw what had happened to Tyler. It was…I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t want to believe it.

And when he passed out…

I’m just glad Ruthie was there to help (I really should ask her about her first aid skills), because I was practically hysterical. Tyler’s just…he means so much to me. I don’t know what I’d do without him, and I’m not even the one with the voice urging me to kill myself in the back of my mind all day.

I pull out my phone and check the time. It’s late (or early, depending on how you see it), but I call Ruthie anyway.

She answers with a sleepy-sounding “What the actual heck?”

“Hi,” I say casually.

“Why are you calling me in the middle of the night?”

“It’s two, so technically it’s morning,” I correct her.

“Okay, just answer the freaking question, Joshua.”

“I couldn’t sleep.”

“Are you still at the hospital?”

“Yeah.”

“How’s Tyler?”

“Sleeping,” I say, resting one hand on the bed next to Tyler’s. He murmurs something in his sleep and links our fingers together. I watch him for a moment, not daring to pull away. “Ruthie?”

“What? And this had better be important, because I just got to sleep an hour ago and I’ll be lucky to get any more.”

“I’m, like, ninety percent sure that I’m gay.”

“Oh, cool,” Ruthie says after a moment. “Welcome to the club.”

“What?”

“I’m pansexual, but I realized a long time ago that guys can be idiots sometimes. No offense. I just prefer girls, typically.”

“Okay.”

“This couldn’t wait until morning? It’s going to take me forever to get back to sleep.”

“Sorry. I was just still awake.”

Ruthie sighs. “It’s fine, I wasn’t going to get a full night’s sleep anyway. Oh, and Josh?”

I hum in acknowledgement.

“Does this have something to do with Tyler?”

“I guess so,” I admit. “I like him. A lot.”

“I figured,” Ruthie says. “So, good night. Or good morning, I guess.”

“Good morning,” I agree.

She hangs up first.

I don’t think either of us will get much sleep.

 

When Tyler finally stirs in the morning, I’m still awake.

His hold on my hand loosens as he sits up, glancing down at our intertwined fingers. His cheeks flush immediately. “When did that happen?”

“You were asleep but you just kind of…grabbed my hand. I don’t know.”

“Oh,” Tyler says. It takes him a moment to pull his own hand away.

Ruthie shows up at the door. “Morning,” she chirps. Her gaze sweeps over my face, and I know my tired eyes must betray that I didn’t sleep at all last night. “Josh, did you even try to go to sleep?”

“Of course I did!” I defend myself. “I was just worried about Ty, that’s all.”

Tyler frowns. “I feel like it’s my fault.”

“Really, I’m fine,” I assure him. “Nothing’s your fault.”

Tyler’s head suddenly jerks to the side, and he seems to be talking to someone.

“Freaking Blurryface,” Ruthie mutters. “Tyler!”

Tyler looks back at her. “Sorry, he - “ he winces. “How do you get Blurryface to shut up?”

“She doesn’t, not really,” Ruthie says.

“Does she ever get quieter?”

“Find someone,” Ruthie begins, her voice suddenly softer, “that lets you know how much they care about you.” She glances at me, eyes sparkling. I can’t tell if she’s crying or trying to hint that I could help him. “Not neccessarily through words, but through their actions as well. Someone who will take it upon themselves to make you believe they care, and then eventually you’ll start to believe it. That’s when Blurryface gets quieter, when she - or he - realizes that maybe you aren’t worthless. One person, that’s all it takes.”

Tyler nods, seeming thoughtful, and Ruthie smiles.

“Bye, Tyler. Josh.” She nods and winks at me before leaving.

I know what she’s trying to do - she’s trying to give me a perfect moment to tell Tyler. She's playing matchmaker - and she's surprisingly subtle about it, too.

But I’m too scared. I can’t do it. Not yet.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW (I think) for mentions of self-harm. Nothing too detailed though.

jishua has created a new chat with melodic_poet

jishua: ruthie  
i think i’m going to die

melodic_poet: !!!  
WHY???  
JOSHUA WILLIAM DUN

jishua: how do you know my middle name

melodic_poet: tyler told me  
BUT JOSHUA  
WHAT IS IT  
WHAT IS WRONG

jishua: well  
um  
i was going to come out to ty

melodic_poet: aww cute :)

jishua: not cute  
i messed up

melodic_poet: how so?

jishua: well I was going to bring it up by saying ‘hey listen i’m gay, i just thought you should know’ or something casual like that  
(i wasn’t going to do it today though)  
(maybe when he went back to school?)  
(idk)  
but anyway  
we were just talking  
and he laughed  
and tbh his laugh sounds like a chorus of frEAKING ANGELS

melodic_poet: omg i ship it

jishua: shut up  
and  
he stopped laughing  
but he was still smiling  
and his eyes just kind of sparkled  
with this internal kind of laughter  
and he looked at me  
and he was smiling  
and it was sO CUTE

melodic_poet: omg

jishua: …  
you’re just not going to stop, are you?

melodic_poet: nope  
but continue, i’m very invested in this story now

jishua: okay but he looked so cute  
and i just blurted out ‘i am really freaking gay’

melodic_poet: OH MY GOD JOSHUA  
YOU DID NOT

jishua: YES I DID  
and i was just MORTIFIED

melodic_poet: nice vocab word

jishua: thanks :)  
BUT ANYWAY  
he just kind of looked at me  
and it was that look that he sometimes gets that just doesn’t tell you anything  
because it’s mostly neutral but there’s something there and you can’t quite place it

melodic_poet: you must spend a good deal of time admiring his face to recognize this expression

jishua: i do not

melodic_poet: josh.

jishua: …okay maybe a little  
but i just FREAKED OUT  
AND I RAN OUT OF THAT HOSPITAL LIKE MY LIFE DEPENDED ON IT  
WHICH IT VERY WELL MIGHT HAVE  
BECAUSE I WAS GOING TO DIE OF EMBARRASSMENT  
so can I stop by your house?  
i need to hide from my bad decisions

melodic_poet: yeah, sure

jishua: great because i’m already here

melodic_poet: JOSHUA I SWEAR

jishua: ^u^

melodic_poet: DO NOT ^u^ ME JOSHUA

jishua: oh my god ruthie i just came out to my crush cut me some slack

 

I turn off my phone and run downstairs, opening the front door to see Josh sitting on my porch.

He looks up and smiles. “Oh, hey. Fancy seeing you here.”

“This is my freaking house.”

“Yeah. Can I come in?”

I step to the side and allow him to walk inside. “Come on, let’s go up to my room.”

We walk upstairs. When we get to my room, I turn to him.

“No way did you say that to Tyler,” I say.

“Yes, I did,” Josh says with a grimace. “I told Tyler that I am, and I quote, ‘really freaking gay.’”

“That’s quite possibly the worst way to phrase that.”

“And because he was being cute,” Josh says exasperatedly, letting himself flop to the ground. “I’m sorry, just leave me to die.”

“Okay, well, he isn’t going to put two and two together,” I point out. “He’s astonishingly oblivious about this stuff.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, of course. I swear he’ll be calling you later and saying he doesn’t judge you and it’s okay.”

Josh sighs. “I hope.”

“Now come on, let’s actually do something.”

Josh wanders over to my guitar and plucks one of the strings. “Can you play any songs?”

“Mostly just my own,” I say, my face turning red. “And before you ask, no, I won’t play any of them for you.”

“You and Tyler are really similar, aren’t you?” Josh asks.

“It’s just…” I sigh and look away, my gaze falling on the notebook on my nightstand. “There’s some really personal stuff in those lyrics. I showed them to some friends I had a while back, and even taking the lyrics for exactly what they said, it was too obvious. I can be myself in my songs. I don’t want anyone to hear them and think hard enough to figure it out, because I’m really messed up and I’m worried no one will see me in the same way again. I don’t want that.” I run my thumb along the scars on my wrist.

“Why do you always do that?” Josh asks, pointing at my hands.

“Do what?” I reply, pulling my hands behind my back.

“You rub your thumb on your wrist whenever you’re uncomfortable,” Josh explains. “Why?”

I slowly pull up my jacket sleeve and look for a moment at the rows of straight lines on my arm. “You’re right,” I say quietly after a moment, turning my arm to show him the scars. “Tyler and I are really similar.”

Josh stares at my wrist for a moment before meeting my gaze. “I’m sorry,” he says, and I can hear in his voice that he’s sincere.

For once Blurryface doesn’t say anything, and I can’t help but think that my advice to Tyler was even more accurate than I thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's weird. I don't know. When I came out to my family it was kind of an accident and I ended up being really embarrassed, so I kind of put Josh in a similar situation.  
> Galaxy |-/


	8. Chapter 8

Josh and I are hanging out, singing along to some of our favorite songs, when his phone rings.

I scramble to pause my music as he checks the caller ID.  “It’s Tyler,” he says, pulling the phone to his ear.

“Put him on speaker,” I say.  “I want to say hi.”

“You just want to eavesdrop,” Josh points out, rolling his eyes.

He puts Tyler on speaker anyway.

“J-Josh?”

“Hey, Tyler,” Josh says.

“Hey,” I echo.

“Is that Ruthie?” Tyler asks.

“Yeah, she and I are hanging out.”

“Um, listen, a-about what you said earlier…”  Tyler sounds nervous, as if he thinks Josh will be angry with him.  “I just - you ran out before I had a chance to react, and I just want to say that it’s fine.  I’m not judging you. Um, actually, I’m gay too.  Or - bi.  Or something.”

Josh glances up at me, surprised.

“Welcome to the club,” I say, grinning at Josh as I repeat what I told him last night.

“What?”

“Well, I’m pansexual but I prefer girls.  So I guess all three of us aren’t...straight.”

“Oh,” Tyler says, sounding relieved.  “Okay, good. I mean, I didn’t know how you were going to react, but this is…it’s definitely a relief.”  He laughs. “Okay. Great. Fantastic.”

“So how are you feeling?” Josh asks.

“Better,” Tyler says.  “But still not very good.  Blurry’s still here, obviously.”

“Still as loud as ever?” I ask.

“Pretty much, yeah.  He doesn’t seem to want to believe that you guys were so cool about me coming out.”

“Understandable,” I say.  “Hey, we can talk later, okay?  Josh has to leave.”

“Right,” Tyler says, sounding disappointed.  “Josh, do you still have time to chat?”

“Yeah, sure,” Josh says.  “Bye, Ruthie. Thanks for having me over.”

“It was literally the opposite of a problem,” I assure him before he leaves.

 

_ jishua: ruthie help _

 

_ melodic_poet: on a scale of having a pebble in your shoe to the ‘really freaking gay’ incident, how much of a problem is this? _

 

_ jishua: like a 29 _

 

_ melodic_poet: so worse???? _

 

_ jishua: yeah _

_ like _

_ quite a bit worse _

 

_ melodic_poet: ouch _

_ so what’s the issue? _

 

_ jishua: well _

_ um _

_ ty and i were just talking, you know? _

_ and somehow we end up talking about how in an alternate universe anything could be happening _

_ and he started talking about how if we can imagine it, it’s happening somewhere, sometime _

_ and then he kind of went like ‘so if i can imagine dating - ‘ _

_ but he just kind of stopped. _

 

_ melodic_poet: just stopped talking? _

 

_ jishua: yeah _

_ and i just asked ‘what?’ _

_ he said ‘nothing, sorry, i got distracted.  anyway, if i can imagine dating someone, then it’s happening in an alternate universe right now’ _

_ so idk what to do?? _

 

_ melodic_poet: i have no clue what’s going on here _

_ i mean _

_ i would guess he likes someone but doesn’t want to tell you _

_ which kind of makes it sound like he likes you _

 

_ jishua: !!!!!!!!!! _

 

_ melodic_poet: don’t take my word for it! _

_ that’s just how it seems to me _

_ but i ship it hardcore, and you know how shippers can get sometimes, pointing out every little thing… _

_ anyway _

_ like i was saying _

_ don’t take my word for it! _

_ take tyler’s! _

 

_ jishua: O.O _

_ WHAT THE HECK DID YOU JUST SAY _

 

_ melodic_poet: ^w^ _

 

_ jishua: ANSWER ME PLEASE _

_ WHAT _

 

_ melodic_poet: if you really like him, ask him out or something! _

_ i heard there’s a school dance coming up… _

 

_ jishua: are you kidding??? _

 

_ melodic_poet: no i’m dead serious josh _

_ i’m also dead INSIDE _

_ get it? _

 

_ jishua: ... _

_ if there’s one thing you’re good at _

_ it’s really bad jokes with yourself as the punchline _

 

_ melodic_poet: so are you gonna ask him to the dance or not? _

 

_ jishua: MAYBE _

_ i don’t know yet _

_ just _

_ give me a little bit, ok? _

 

_ melodic_poet: i bet he says yes _

 

_ jishua: ok great _

_ now shush i’m trying to think _

 

_ melodic_poet: ok bye _

_ ….. _

_ i think i’ll go talk to tyler _

 

_ jishua: WHAT RUTHIE NO _

 

_ melodic_poet has left the chat. _

 

_ jishua: RUTHIE _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On a scale of having a pebble in your shoe to the ‘really freaking gay’ incident, how much of a problem is Ruthie leaving the chat to go talk to Tyler?  
> Things are going to get very dramatic very soon.  
> Galaxy |-/


	9. Chapter 9

“Hey, Tyler.”

“Oh, good, you can talk again,” Tyler replies.

“Not so much as a hello?” I ask, pretending to be offended.

Tyler laughs, but it sounds forced.  “Yeah, fine, hello. I need to talk to you about something.”

“Alright.”

“So I’m gay.”

“I’m aware.”

“And I like a guy.”

“Okay.”

“You know him, actually.”

“I know virtually everyone on this planet, just so I can avoid them,” I point out.  “You’ll have to narrow it down a bit.”

“Okay, um, his name’s Josh.”

My phone slides out of my hand, bouncing softly on my bed.

Josh likes Tyler.

Tyler likes Josh.

But neither of them knows.

“Ruthie?”

I hurriedly pick up my phone again.  “Sorry about that. You like Josh? As in, Josh Dun?”

“Y-yeah.”

“As in, Joshua William Dun, our best friend?”

“Yes, I think we’ve established that.”

“As in, Joshua William Dun, our best friend and former popular kid with bright red hair?”

“Um…yes.”

“As in, Joshua William Dun, our best friend who we’ve nicknamed Jishua or just Jish because I accidentally called him that one time, the former popular kid with bright red hair who you and I were talking to earlier today?”

“Ruthie, I think you need to calm down.”

“You’re right,” I say after a second.  “You’re right, of course. I just - you like Josh.”

“Yeah, I do.  Why is this so…so…?”

“Shocking?” I suggest.  “I don’t know. It isn’t shocking.  It’s awesome. I think you two would be adorable together.”

“Thanks?”

“No problem,” I say with a laugh.  “Oh, my God. This is…okay, you probably shouldn’t be alone with me for a while because this is all I’m going to talk about for the next hundred years.”

“I guessed you’d say that,” Tyler admits.  “So go ahead and talk. I’ve made my peace with it.”

“Great, first things first - the end-of-the-year school dance.”

“Ah, of course.”

“Are you going to ask him?  It would be so sweet!”

“I don’t - I don’t know yet,” Tyler stammers.  “I mean, he’s really nice. And funny. And he’s, like, really cute.  Like, insanely attractive - “

I clear my throat.  “I get it, Tyler.”

Tyler coughs awkwardly.  “Sorry. He is, though. Anyway.  He’s so many amazing things but he’s so perfect that it’s almost intimidating, you know?”

“Yeah, I understand.  So you like him but you’re too scared to ask him out.”

“Exactly.  So?”

“Just ask him out,” I say as though it’s the simplest thing in the world.  Quite the opposite, in fact. “Unless you’d like me to tell him for you.”

“No, no, that’s fine,” Tyler protests.  “I want to tell him myself, okay?”

“Okay, fantastic.”

“So, yeah, I just wanted to tell you…I mean, you called me, I was going to call you, but then - “

“Tyler,” I interrupt gently.

“Sorry,” Tyler says quickly.  “Um, there was this thing earlier.  Josh and I were talking about, like, alternate universes, and I mentioned how anything could be happening in those alternate universes, that if we can imagine it, then it’s happening, and then I forgot for a second that he doesn’t know I like him and I almost said that if I could imagine dating him, then it was happening somewhere.  And, trust me, I am  _ insanely _ jealous of the Tyler Joseph in that universe.”

I grin.  If things continue like this, I won’t even have to play matchmaker to get them to confess - they’ll get there on their own.  “Tyler?”

“Yeah?”

“Josh definitely noticed something, he texted me about it earlier.”

Tyler is silent.

“You okay?”

“Oh, my God,” Tyler mutters.  “This is bad, this is so very bad, oh my God.”

“Tyler, it’ll be fine,” I say in a rather desperate attempt to reassure him.

“No, it won’t, he probably knows I like him and I - “

“Do you want him to know you like him?”

“Yeah, but I don’t want to have to  _ tell _ him,” Tyler explains.  “And I want to decide when he finds out, too.  I don’t want it to be because I forgot that I hadn’t told him for  _ one second.” _

“So what if he thinks you might like him?  You still get to decide when he knows for sure,” I point out.

“I guess,” Tyler replies.  “But, I mean, do you think he knows?”

I shrug.  “Maybe. Probably not, though.”

Technically I’m not lying - Josh had no clue until I told him what I thought it might be.

“Okay, great.  Yeah. Thanks, Ruthie.”

“Hey, do you know when you’re getting home from the hospital?”

Tyler hesitates.  “Uh, sometime this week, I guess.  I’m not entirely sure.”

“Okay, well, let me know,” I say.  “Talk later?”

“Yeah, of course.  Bye.”

 

After a few days, Tyler is home from the hospital.  Josh and I end up going to his house after school on Wednesday.

“So, what do you guys want to do?”

Josh’s gaze immediately drifts to the ukulele sitting on Tyler’s bed.  “I’m going to be optimistic and ask if you’d play any songs for us.”

Tyler grins, picking up the ukulele.  “You’re lucky I’m in a good mood, Dun, because I think I might just be willing.”

“Did you just call me ‘Dun?’” Josh asks, laughing.

“Yes,” Tyler replies simply.  “Hold on, I’m trying to remember something so I can play.”

Josh takes a seat in a chair by Tyler’s desk and I sit on the floor.  Cradling his ukulele in his arms like it’s a child, Tyler begins to play.

_ “Wise men say _

_ Only fools rush in _

_ But I can’t help _

_ Falling in love with you.” _

I smile at his choice of song.  His voice takes on a soft, relaxed, almost dreamlike quality, his eyes closed as he strums.

_ “Shall I stay? _

_ Would it be a sin? _

_ If I can’t help _

_ Falling in love with you.” _

Josh is grinning, his eyes shining as he listens to the ukulele and Tyler’s voice, which somehow blend together perfectly.

_ “Like a river flows _

_ Surely to the sea _

_ Darling, so it goes _

_ Some things are meant to be _

_ Take my hand _

_ Take my whole life, too _

_ For I can’t help _

_ Falling in love with you _

 

_ Like a river flows _

_ Surely to the sea _

_ Darling, so it goes _

_ Some things are meant to be _

_ Take my hand _

_ Take my whole life, too _

_ For I can’t help _

_ Falling in love with you _

_ For I can’t help _

_ Falling in love with you.” _

As he strums the last chord, Tyler opens his eyes and glances between me and Josh.  I’m smiling encouraginly (and perhaps knowingly as well) and Josh just looks absolutely amazed.

“That’s amazing, Tyler,” I tell him earnestly.

Josh still doesn’t say anything, his eyes wide and his smile wider.

“Josh?” I prompt.

“Ty,” Josh begins, his voice sounding positively awestruck, “I don’t even know where to begin.  I mean, that was - it was beautiful.”

“Thanks,” Tyler says, smiling shyly.

“I mean, I’ve never really heard you sing before,” Josh points out.  “You’re…wow.”

“Thanks,” Tyler repeats.  He doesn’t seem to know what else to say.  “Hey, are you guys hungry? I think we’ve got some chips downstairs.”

“Great,” I say.  “Josh, you go, I just want to ask Tyler some stuff about ukuleles.”

“Okay,” Josh says, ridiculously oblivious, before walking out of the room.

“Interesting song choice,” I say to Tyler, raising an eyebrow playfully.

“Oh, shut up,” Tyler groans.

“Really, though, the  _ only _ song you could remember just  _ happened _ to be one about falling in love.”

“Alright, was my song choice slightly influenced by Josh’s presence?  Maybe. Was all the emotion in my voice because I like him? Yes. But I swear I was not trying to turn it into a dramatic confession.  That’s your thing, not mine.”

“Hey, dramatic confessions are not my  _ thing,”  _ I protest, pretending to be annoyed.  Tyler glares at me, and I grin. “Okay, yeah, they totally are.  Now come on, Josh is going to be getting suspicious.”

 

About a month later, I’m playing around with a tune I came up with, trying to figure out some chords to go along with it on the guitar, when Josh calls.

“Ruthie,” he says, his voice sounding shaky, as if he’s been crying.  “Listen, I hate to bother you, but can I come over? I need to talk to someone.”

“But what about - “

“And it can’t be Tyler,” Josh says harshly.

“Okay, that’s okay,” I assure him gently.  “You can come over, that’s fine.”

“Be there in ten,” Josh mumbles before hanging up.

I quickly put my guitar away - how in the world can I expect to focus on music after that? - and wait on the front porch for Josh.

When he arrives, I decide my earlier hypothesis was correct - he’d been crying.  “Come on in,” I say, holding the door open, my voice unusually subdued. Something is wrong.

“What’s up?” I ask quietly when we get to my room.

“It’s…”  He pauses, taking a deep breath.  “I was staying in the library after school to do some homework.  And when I left I was just going to stop by my locker and walk home.  But I saw Tyler…” His voice cracks and he takes another breath. “And he was kissing Jenna Black.”

“Oh, my God,” I murmur.  “Josh, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s stupid, you know?  I mistook his kindness for him being interested in me, or whatever, and the whole time…”  He turns his head away from me, staring out the window. “The whole time, he never saw me as anything more than a friend.  It’s stupid.” A tear slips down his cheek.

“Listen to me,” I order.  “Listen. It isn’t stupid.  I get that you’re hurt - I mean, to just…just see your crush kissing someone else - “

“But that’s the thing!” Josh exclaims, his gaze snapping back to me.  “That’s the thing, Ruthie, it  _ wasn’t just a crush anymore.   _ And now I feel absolutely ridiculous because I thought there was actually something there and I - “  He breaks off, tears streaming down his cheeks now. “I let myself fall for him,” he whispers. “But he didn’t care.  I can’t - I can’t believe it, but I was  _ there, _ I saw it, and seeing is believing, right?  It just sucks.”

“I know,” I tell him softly.  “I know.” I pull him into a hug and he doesn’t protest.  

He just cries.


	10. Chapter 10

“Tyler Robert Joseph, you have some explaining to do.”

I’m on the phone with Tyler, about half an hour after Josh left.

“What?” He has the nerve to actually sound  _ confused. _

“Josh saw you kissing Jenna Black.”

“O-oh.”

“‘Oh?’” I ask angrily.  “That’s all you have to say about this?  ‘Oh?’ Tyler, what happened to the endearingly shy kid that played freaking  _ love songs _ for his best friend?  The one that was flirting with Josh with every word he spoke?”

“Ruthie, I - “

“No, Tyler, I don’t want to hear it.  You said you liked Josh? Well, if you really liked him, you wouldn’t go kissing someone when you thought our backs were turned.”

I hang up and flop down on my bed.  I wasn’t going to tell Tyler that Josh had been so torn up over it.  He was  _ devastated. _  But Tyler doesn’t need to know that.

As far as I’m concerned, Tyler can just stay away from us.

 

It’s Friday, the day after the incident with Jenna Black.

Josh sits with me at lunch, of course.  He doesn’t look particularly awake, or even particularly alive.  Mostly, he just looks sad.

Broken, I think.  Yes, that’s it.

Josh looks broken.

I spot Tyler approaching before Josh does, since he’s too busy staring at his lunch and not eating a bite.

“Oh, no,” I mutter.  “Josh, whatever you do, do  _ not _ look up.”

“What?  Why?” Josh asks, immediately looking up.

His gaze meets Tyler’s.

“Oh,” Josh says softly.  “That’s why.”

Tyler stops by our table.  “Josh, I - “

“Save it, Tyler,” I mutter bitterly.  “Honestly, I’m still mad at you.”

“I don’t - I just want to explain,” Tyler protests.

“Ty, if she’s mad at you, she’s mad at you,” Josh interrupts, his voice quiet.  “She doesn’t want to talk, so maybe you should just go.”

For a moment Tyler looks like he’s going to argue, but then he turns and walks away.

I watch him for a moment before turning back to Josh, who has silent tears trailing down his cheeks.

I place a comforting hand on his shoulder.  “Josh, it’ll be okay. I know it hurts, trust me, but it’s going to be okay eventually.”

Josh doesn’t say anything.

“Anything I can do?” I ask gently.

He shakes his head.  

I sigh.  “I’m sorry, Josh, I’m so sorry.”

 

_ twentyonepilots has added melodic_poet _

 

_ twentyonepilots: okay _

_ you aren’t answering my calls _

_ you won’t talk to me at school _

_ but you haven’t blocked me yet _

_ so i’m going to go ahead and try to explain _

 

_ melodic_poet: tyler i do not want to hear it _

_ i can’t even believe you right now _

_ you kissed someone even though you said you liked josh? _

_ how are you going to explain that one _

 

_ twentyonepilots: i miss you guys _

_ i miss us being weird and not caring _

_ i miss actually having friends _

 

_ melodic_poet: i don’t care _

 

_ twentyonepilots: i miss josh. _

 

_ melodic_poet: speaking of josh, did you even stop to think about him before you did that?  did you even think about how he would feel? did you realize that he was going to be upset?  did you realize that he would practically be heartbroken? he was freaking crying, tyler. an apology isn’t going to fix this. _

 

_ twentyonepilots: wait _

_ what? _

_ he was crying? _

_ why would he be crying? _

 

_ melodic_poet: goodbye tyler _

 

_ twentyonepilots: ruthie _

 

_ melodic_poet has blocked twentyonepilots. _

 

I stare at my phone for a moment.  I just told Tyler that Josh was crying after the Jenna incident.

What must Tyler be thinking now?  He clearly got over his little crush on Josh, but now I’ve just given him a huge hint that Josh likes him.

I hope he doesn’t dwell on it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

_ melodic_poet has removed twentyonepilots from Musical Outcasts. _

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Josh seems absolutely miserable.  He hasn’t been crying so much, at least.  But he still doesn’t like things that remind him of Tyler.

“It’s been two weeks since the Jenna incident,” I say gently one afternoon when we’re hanging out at my house.  “Are you feeling any better?”

Josh shakes his head.  “Not really. I mean, I thought…” His voice cracks.  “You’ve heard all this before. I don’t want to annoy you.”

“You won’t annoy me,” I assure him.

“I thought we could’ve been more than friends,” Josh finishes at last.  “Tyler and I.”

I sigh.  “Come on, I want to try something.  You’re going to tell me how you feel, I’m going to grab some paper, my guitar, and a pen, and I’m going to write a song from your point of view and then we can go over to your house and we’ll add in a part for your drums.”

“Do you think it’ll help?” Josh asks, sounding doubtful.

“Writing music helps me, at least, and maybe it’ll help you too.  You can tell me what to write, because you’ve made it pretty clear in the past that you’d rather not be the one doing the talking - or rather, the singing.  And then I’ll record something with my guitar and then you can figure out how to make the drums sound.”

Josh nods.  “Okay.”

I pull a notebook from my dresser and flip it open to the next clean page.  “Okay, think of it like this - you’re talking to Tyler. What do you want to tell him?”

“I mean, the first thing I’d do is ask him what he was thinking.  But then, he probably wasn’t.”

“Okay,” I say.  That goes into the notebook.  “Like this?”

_ I have to ask _

_ What were you thinking? _

_ I have to say _

_ You weren’t _

“Yeah, that’s good,” Josh says, sounding pretty excited.  “Um, I’d want to know if he had any idea how much it sucked, to feel that way about him, and then to have it all just taken away in a second.  Like, I want to hate him, but I can’t.”

_ I have to ask _

_ Did you know I was sinking? _

_ The line between love and hate is blurred _

“Because,” Josh continues, “the thing is, I don’t blame him, because I was hiding my feelings from literally everyone, even though he was everything I’d ever wanted.”

There’s a melody in my mind, so I put a break between the first part and the second part of what he said.  “I think this should be the start of the chorus.”

_ I have to say _

_ I don’t blame you if you didn’t know _

_ I hid it from everyone, although _

_ (chorus) _

_ You were everything to me _

“That would work,” Josh agrees.  “He ended up not being who I thought he was, and it kind of sucks that we never really got to say any kind of goodbye before he did this, because that makes it so much worse.”

_ But you weren’t what you seemed to be _

_ No, no _

_ We said hello, but never goodbye _

“I guess,” Josh says hesitantly, “it’s kind of like, no one’s really what meets the eye, you know?  You can’t just trust what you see, and I can’t trust him.”

_ And that’s when I knew _

_ You can’t trust what meets the eye _

_ I can’t trust you _

“Jishua,” I say, grinning, “I think we just wrote the verse and chorus of a song.  You want to hear what I’m thinking for the guitar?”

“Yeah, sure.”

I grab my guitar from its stand and start strumming, making sure it sounds exactly as I want it to, and then I start singing.  I’m singing his words back to him, putting as much emotion into the song as I can. “Is that good?”

“Yeah, it’s great!” Josh says.  “Second verse?”

“Let’s go.”

We spend the next two hours writing and revising the rest of the song, and eventually I record my parts on my laptop.

“Can we go to my house so I can do the drum part?” Josh asks.  “I’ve already got some ideas.”

We spend two more hours at his house working on his part before we record that as well and listen to the final product.  It’s amazing - it starts out quiet and hurt, building to a dramatic climax and then dropping back down to be even quieter than the beginning.  Josh seems pretty impressed.

“This is great,” he says enthusiastically.

“Feeling better?” I ask.

“Yeah, I think I am.”


	11. Chapter 11

A month later, Josh seems almost okay.

He introduces this guy to me, Leo, and they go on a few dates.  I’m glad Josh is doing better, but I’m still mad at Tyler.

“Hey, you okay?” Leo asks me.  I look back at him (he’s taken the seat that used to be Tyler’s and for some reason I’m angry because of that) and realize I’d zoned out.

“Yeah.  Fine. Distracted,” I say, leaving him to piece together a sentence from my starting points.

He nods and then turns back to his conversation with Josh.

Distracted doesn’t even begin to cut it.  My gaze falls on Tyler, sitting with Jenna Black.

Tyler, who broke my other best friend’s heart and now has the nerve to flaunt the relationship right under his nose.

Tyler, who either got over his crush in record speed (if so, he has to teach me his secret), or he lied about liking Josh in the first place.

I grab my stuff and pull a book out of my bag, leaving without even a word to Josh or Leo about where I’m going.

I go to one of the least-used stairwells.  It has a window sill that’s fairly easy to climb up and sit on, but no one else seems to consider it to be worth it.

I like it.  It feels like I’m alone, even though I’m in plain sight of everyone who happens to walk through.  That means no one’ll worry, but I still get to feel as though I’m alone when I need it.

Flipping open my book, I settle down on my window sill intending to read, but I just can’t focus.  It’s not like that’s a surprise, I can’t focus on anything these days.

I still have that recording on my laptop.  I open it and listen. Josh was so hurt just a month ago.  I can’t believe how fast he got over it. I remember his words when he first told me about Tyler and Jenna.

_ That’s the thing!  It wasn’t just a crush anymore. _

Is anything ever really a crush?  Some strange, indefinable concept that means different things to different people.  To me, at least, a crush is the fluttering feeling in your stomach when you look at them, when you feel almost giddy with excitement at the thought of talking to them.  To have a crush on someone, you don’t even have to know what they’re like. You don’t have to wish for a relationship with them, you just have to feel something about them.  But maybe it’s different for Josh?

I’m feeling pretty anxious, overthinking everything.  My book lies forgotten on the ground.

But then I hear a commotion coming from outside the stairwell.

I run out to see what it is, and I see Tyler glaring at Jenna.  Almost everything is dead silent.

“What is it?” Jenna asks, sounding bewildered.  “Did I do something wrong?”

“Who the heck cares if Josh is gay?” Tyler asks.  “Him and his boyfriend - it’s no different than you and me.”

“It’s unnatural,” Jenna argues.  “Please sit back down, Ty, you’re causing a scene.”

“Jenna, I’m sorry, but I can’t.  If you think being gay is wrong, then what about being bi?”

He must be referring to himself.

“That’s unnatural too,” Jenna says, completely oblivious.  “I mean, you’re either gay or you’re straight, that’s it.”

I can’t stop myself from stepping forward.  “Yeah, as if,” I scoff. Jenna spins around to face me.  “Okay, there’s so much more than gay and straight. I bet you think there’s only girls and boys and nothing else, too.”

Jenna opens her mouth to argue, but doesn’t say anything.

“People can like both girls and boys,” I continue, “or they can like neither, or they can like both and then some others.  You can have your opinion, but please keep it to yourself rather than hurting people, okay?”

She nods before turning back to Tyler.  “Sit back down, please.”

“No.  I can’t.  You think being bi is unnatural?   _ I’m _ bi.  Okay? So I’m sorry, I can’t do this.”

“Are you breaking up with me?” Jenna practically squeaks.

Tyler hesitates.  “Yeah. I am. Goodbye.”

And then he turns and walks away.

I walk back over to Josh and Leo.  “Um…what the heck just happened?”

Josh blushes when Leo glances at him.

“Oh, I kissed Josh,” Leo explains when it become clear Josh isn’t going to say anything, “and then that guy jumped up and yelled at the girl.  I  _ think _ she might’ve said something about Josh being gay?  Just a guess, I don’t know.”

“I’m going to go find Tyler,” I announce.

Josh’s eyes widen.  “I thought we agreed not to talk to him.”

“He just broke up with his girlfriend for being close-minded and homophobic, and he mentioned you while doing so.  I think we can make an exception.”

As I walk away, I hear Leo ask Josh, “Who’s Tyler?”

I shake my head with a sigh.

_ Good luck explaining that.  ‘Oh, it’s just this guy that used to be our friend and I had a crush on him until I saw him kissing a girl and he broke my heart.’ _

I manage to track down Tyler, sitting in an empty hallway against the wall with his head in his hands.

“Hey, you okay?” I ask.

“Oh, you’re talking to me again?” He asks, raising his head.  I can see tears on his cheeks.

I shrug.  “Briefly. Would you mind telling me what that was all about?”

“Jenna…she kind of spotted Josh kissing some guy and made a comment on how it was ‘disgusting’ or whatever, and I kind of blew up.”

“Why’re you sitting alone in the hallway and crying?”

“Because it couldn’t have been someone  _ else _ kissing that guy.  It had to be Josh.”

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“It was Josh!  He was kissing someone!”

“I know,” I say, confused.  “Why does this bother you?”

“Because - “ Tyler hesitates, looking away.  I almost don’t hear what he says next. “I still like him, okay?  And I messed up. I messed up so badly when I kissed Jenna and I don’t know, maybe I was trying to prove to myself that I was being ridiculous or something and Jenna’s nice - or so I thought - but she just isn’t  _ Josh,  _ you know?  And I was just coming to terms with it myself and I was going to break up with Jenna soon, obviously not in front of half the school, but then she said that and Josh was  _ kissing someone _ and it wasn’t me and I just - “ He takes a deep breath, trying to calm himself down.  “I just miss him, but I’ve already done it and he’s got a boyfriend now. I can’t do anything about it and Blurry’s been telling me that none of this would’ve happened if I weren’t such a coward.”

I think for a moment.  “Would you feel better or worse if you were back in our little group?”

Tyler sighs.  “Without Jenna, I have no friends.  But being around Josh…I don’t know.”

“You and I can be friends again, if you want.  You don’t have to hang out with Josh.”

He nods after a moment.  “Thanks.”

“Tyler?”

He looks up.  “Yeah?”

“I’m sorry.  If you’d said something sooner, then maybe…”

“No, I get it,” Tyler interrupts.  “But, I mean, if Josh is happy with…”

“Leo,” I tell him.

“Leo,” he says with a nod, “if he’s happy with Leo, then he should stay with Leo.  I don’t want to push them apart.”

“Mature,” I comment.  “I’m sorry again. Meet me back here tomorrow at lunch?”

“Of course,” Tyler agrees.  “I’ll see you. And - “ He bites his lip.  “Um, just tell Josh I say hello. Okay?”

“I will,” I promise before leaving the hallway and heading back to Josh and Leo’s table.

“What happened?” Josh asks almost immediately, pulling his head up from where it rests on Leo’s shoulder.

“Apparently Jenna saw Leo kiss you and made a comment on how ‘disgusting’ it was,” I say with a shrug.  “Anyway, Tyler says hello.”

“Does he?” Josh asks, seeming confused.  “Okay.”

“Come on,” Leo says quietly to Josh.  “We really should get to class. We have that science project, remember?”

“Yeah, we should go,” Josh agrees, gathering his things.  They walk away, standing almost impossibly close together with their hands intertwined.

The sight leaves me feeling sorry for Tyler and beyond lonely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, I just wanted to throw in some angst. Maybe I was trying to make the fic a little more interesting for you guys, I don’t know. This is my first work in the fandom, it’s a little all over the place.  
> Also, I am so, so, so, so, so sorry for making Jenna seem terrible. She’s actually wonderful and I’m not sure I could hate her if I tried.  
> Anyway, stay alive, friends. If you can do that, I’ll try to do the same so I can finish this fic for you.  
> Galaxy |-/


	12. Chapter 12

When I sit down next to Tyler in the hallway at lunch, he doesn’t turn to me, doesn’t even miss a beat, just greets me with: “I want to die.”

I nod.  “Same, kind of.”

“Kind of?”

“I don’t know if I want to die, but I just don’t want to be alive.”

“Oh.”

So we sit there for a few minutes, eating our lunches, until I break the silence.  “Why do you want to die?”

“Because life is meaningless and no one’s really unique or anything.”

“Elaborate.”

“What is this, an English exam?” Tyler says with a sideways glance at me.  He continues anyway. “Remember when we were talking about alternate universes?  How there’s infinite alternate universes and that means there’s alternate universes where everything is exactly the same?  Wouldn’t that mean that no one is actually special in any way? There’s someone in another universe that’s exactly like all of us, so in the grand scheme of things, if we were gone nothing would change.”

“Yeah, but we’re special in this universe,” I point out.

“This one, maybe.  But there’s an alternate universe full of nothing  _ but _ Tyler Josephs, or Ruthie Williams.”

“Or Josh Duns,” I say.  “So in theory you shouldn’t miss the one here.”

“But I do,” Tyler argues.

“Precisely.”

That shuts him up for a while.

 

I’m walking past the music room about an hour after school has ended and I hear something.  It sounds like screaming, but it’s screaming words with a background of piano. I can’t quite make out what the voice is saying, but I quietly open the door to the music room to listen a bit better, not yet looking inside, and the person - a boy, I’ve decided - begins another song.

_ “I know where you stand _

_ Silent in the trees _

_ And that’s where I am _

_ Silent in the trees _

_ Why won’t you speak _

_ Where I happen to be? _

_ Silent in the trees _

_ Standing cowardly _

_ I can feel your breath _

_ I can feel my death _

_ I want to know you _

_ I want to see _

_ I want to say _

_ Hello _

_ Hello _

_ Hello _

_ Hello.” _

The song continues like that, the ‘hello’s exploding into screams at the end.  It’s a good song, I decide. I think the person wrote it. I push the door open a little farther to see the person, now writing in a notebook.

And I’m shocked.

“Tyler?” I ask.

He spins around, almost falling off of the piano chair.  “Ruthie?”

“Did you write that?”

After a moment, he nods shyly.  “Why are you here?”

“I heard you screaming a bit.  Something about eyes? I’m not sure.”

“Yeah, I was playing another song I’d written.”

“What are they called?”

“The one with the eyes, that’s called Blasphemy,” Tyler tells me, “and that other one just now was called Trees.”

I stay silent for a moment.  “Tyler, I’ve got to say, that was amazing.”

“Really?”

I nod.  “Yeah, of course.  I mean - honestly, I had no clue you could write like that, it’s so...meaningful.”

“Thanks,” Tyler says.  Suddenly he jumps up. “Hold on a second, I need to…” He trails off, grabbing a black notebook sitting on top of the piano and a pen from the teacher’s desk before starting to write.

“Do you have any other songs?”

“Quite a few, actually.”

“You should play for the talent show!” I say suddenly.  “Auditions are in two weeks. I’m trying out, for sure, but I don’t know what I’m singing yet.”

“I’ll try out - “ Tyler begins.

“Fantastic!” I exclaim.

“But  _ only _ if you sing one of your songs.”

That stops me.  “One-one of my songs?”

“I’ve never heard them before,” Tyler says.  “But from what I know about you, it’ll be amazing.  You have to do it.”

I take a deep breath.  “Okay, I will. But I’m not going to tell you what I’m singing.  It’ll be a surprise.”

“Then I’ll do the same,” Tyler says.  After a moment he speaks again. “‘Trees,’ that song you heard, I had written part of it a while ago.  And then when I...when I tried to kill myself, that’s when I wrote the part about ‘I can feel my death.’  I wanted to say  _ hello _ to you guys, to Josh, really, just one more time.”

I nod silently.  “Do you write about him a lot?”

Tyler flips through the pages of the notebook.  “Define ‘a lot.’”

“So, yes,” I say helpfully.

“Yes,” Tyler echoes.  “Kind of hard not to write a lot about someone who occupies your thoughts most of the time.”

“A few years ago I wrote a dozen songs about someone who lied to me.”

“A dozen?” Tyler repeats.

“Yeah.  I mean, after I confronted him, we just stopped talking, and I never really got any, um, ‘closure,’” I say, putting air quotes around the word.  “Whatever that’s supposed to feel like. So I turned to music, like I always had.”

“Well, I can’t wait to  _ finally _ hear one of your songs,” Tyler says, trying for a smile.

“And I can’t wait to hear whatever song you end up choosing,” I reply, smiling as well.  “I’ll see you later.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, yeah. And, by the way, the songs written by Ruthie are actual songs that I have written. None of them are really any good, but I like writing them anyway.  
> Galaxy |-/


	13. Chapter 13

I’m at the talent show, my ukulele by my side.  I’m wearing a long black dress that almost makes me look like I’m in mourning.  It’s sleeveless, which is daring for me because if anyone were to look at my arm, they would see my scars in plain sight.

Tyler is wearing a relatively normal outfit, perhaps a bit fancier than usual - it’s a black button-up with short sleeves instead of a normal t-shirt.  He sees me and smiles. “You’re playing your ukulele?”

I nod nervously.  “Yeah, I am. Are you playing yours?”

Tyler shakes his head.  “Piano, actually.”

“Cool,” I say.  “Hey, listen - I promised Josh I would talk to him before I went on, so…”

“Yeah,” Tyler says quickly.  “Go.”

I run through the crowds in the darkened room.  Rather than a typical talent show, our school does it in more of a relaxed way, with people standing or sitting around at tables, talking and laughing and eating, with the acts going on, one after the other, on a platform at the front.  Josh is sitting cross-legged amongst a group of tiny first graders at the front, and it’s hilarious to see.

“Ruthie!” He says, sitting up and waving to me.

I walk over.  “Hey.”

“I can’t wait to hear your song!  I bet it’s going to be great.”

“Thanks, Josh.  No pressure at all, huh?”

Josh grins.  “No pressure, don’t worry.”

The night wears on, and eventually it’s almost my turn.  I grab my ukulele and stand next to the stage, listening as the two teachers stop their staged banter to introduce me.

“So, our next performer is Ruthie Williams, and she’s going to be singing and playing ukulele for a song called ‘Get Out Of My Head,’ which she actually wrote herself.”

Murmurs explode around the room as I walk onto stage.  People are intrigued, they want to see how it’s going to sound.

I take a deep breath, look straight ahead, and begin to play.  After the intro, I sing.

_ “There’s something in my head _

_ I can’t take it _

_ It’s tearing me apart _

_ There’s something in my mind _

_ I can’t place it _

_ It’s searching for my heart.” _

I look around at the crowd, take a deep breath, and continue.  I’m so nervous my voice is shaking.

_ “There’s something in my soul _

_ It’s been hiding _

_ From the light for years _

_ There’s something in my bones _

_ It’s been feeding _

_ On my deepest fears.” _

One more deep breath.  I’m almost to the chorus - I know this.  I can do it.

_ “And I’m crashing _

_ And I break down _

_ And I can’t get up _

_ And I’m falling _

_ To the ground _

_ But it’s not deep enough.” _

Time for the chorus.  Finally feeling more confident, I launch straight into it.

_ “Get out of my head, oh _

_ Get out of my mind, oh _

_ I know what I’ll find, oh _

_ Everyone who’s ever hurt me _

_ Inside _

 

_ There’s screaming in my head _

_ I can’t take it _

_ I’ve lost my way _

_ I’m lost inside my mind _

_ Just face it _

_ I have no reason to stay _

_ There’s darkness in my soul _

_ I’ve been hiding _

_ It from the world for years _

_ Agony in my bones _

_ I’ve been trying _

_ To kill my fears _

 

_ And I’m crashing _

_ And I break down _

_ And I can’t get up _

_ And I’m falling _

_ To the ground _

_ Why am I never enough?” _

My voice cracks and I practically shout the last line of the pre-chorus.  I feel like I’m going to cry. I’m baring my soul to my entire school, and it’s terrifying.

_ “Get out of my head, oh _

_ Get out of my mind, oh _

_ I know what I’ll find, oh _

_ Everyone who’s ever hurt me _

_ Inside.” _

Josh, still sitting just in front of the stage, isn’t smiling much anymore.  I watched the smile fall from his face when I said - well, sang - ‘why am I never enough?’

I don’t think he realized it was this bad.

Well, here’s his reality check, in the form of the bridge of a song I wrote when I wanted to die.

_ “And they can’t know _

_ The real me _

_ And they can’t know _

_ I’m lost _

_ And they can’t try _

_ To love me _

_ I’ll stop them where they stand _

_ And they can’t try _

_ To love me _

_ ‘Cause they don’t know the cost.” _

This was the part I was always nervous about singing when I practiced at home.  If my family heard me singing about how I can’t let anyone love me because they don’t ‘know the cost,’ they’d freak out.  They’d make a fuss, and that was exactly what I didn’t want.

_ “Get out of my head, oh _

_ Get out of my mind, oh _

_ I know what I’ll find, oh _

_ Everyone who’s ever hurt me _

_ Inside _

_ Get out of my soul, oh _

_ I’m feeling so cold, oh _

_ Hand over my heart, oh _

_ Don’t tear me apart, oh _

 

_ And they can’t know _

_ The real me _

_ They just know my face _

_ And they can’t know _

_ The real me _

_ I was never there in the first place _

_ Oh, oh, oh _

_ And they can’t know _

_ The real me _

_ ‘Cause they just know _

_ What they see _

_ Oh, oh, oh _

_ Oh, oh, oh.” _

I finish the song, but I don’t smile like I have in past years, when the covers I’ve always played ended happily.  I stand, ukulele held tightly in one hand, and bow, walking off of the platform to cheers and clapping.

Tyler greets me immediately.  “Wow. I just...wow. That was fantastic.”

“Thanks,” I say, allowing myself to smile at last.  “Let me go put my ukulele away - you’re after the next person, right?”

He nods.  “I’m nervous.”

“You’ll do great,” I assure him.

I leave my ukulele with my parents, who greet me with hugs and congratulations, before running back to Josh, smiling at Tyler as he waits at the edge of the platform.

“Ruthie, that was great!” Josh says.  “But I guess...I don’t know. I didn’t realize it was that…”

“I’m okay,” I reply with a shrug.  “Hey, um, Tyler’s up next.”

Josh tenses.  “Tyler?”

“Yeah.  I’m going to stick around.”

“I may as well stay, too.”

The act ends and the two teachers running the show come back on.

“So next we’ve got Tyler Joseph, he also wrote the song he’s going to be singing and playing the piano for.  It’s called ‘Taxi Cab.’”

Tyler steps onstage, sitting down by the piano and pulling the microphone closer to his mouth to speak into it better.  “So, hi, I’m Tyler, and, um, yeah, this song’s called ‘Taxi Cab.’ I just want to say something before I start, if that’s okay with everyone?”

The crowd stays mostly silent, save for some chatter from the younger children.

“Um...okay,” Tyler says.  “The song is actually about someone who used to be my friend, until I went and messed it up.  Because that’s what I do, really, I mess things up. And I felt terrible about it. But anyway, I wrote this song kind of about him when he came home with me from the hospital after I tried to kill myself.  And if he’s listening - which I hope he is - then I just want him to know that I’m sorry and he’s important to me. More than he knows.” His voice cracks. “Okay, here we go.”

Josh glances at me.  I pretend not to notice, my gaze still fixed on Tyler.

And then he starts playing.

_ “I wanna fall inside your ghost _

_ And fill up every hole inside my mind _

_ And I want everyone to know _

_ That I am half a soul divided _

 

_ Sometimes we will die and sometimes _

_ We will fly away _

_ Either way you’re by my side _

_ Until my dying days _

_ And if I’m not there and I’m _

_ Far away _

_ I said _

_ Don’t be afraid _

_ I said _

_ Don’t be afraid _

_ We’re going home.” _

Tyler pulls himself away from the microphone as he continues to play, looking up at the ceiling.  I can see tears glistening on his cheeks.

_ “I wanna strip myself of breath _

_ A breathless piece of death I’ve made for you _

_ A mortal rotting piece of song _

_ Will help me carry on _

_ But at least you heard _

 

_ Oh, sometimes we will die and sometimes _

_ We will fly away _

_ Either way you’re by my side _

_ Until my dying days _

_ And if I’m not there and I’m _

_ Far away _

_ I said _

_ Don’t be afraid _

_ I said _

_ Don’t be afraid _

_ We’re going home _

_ Oh _

_ Oh _

_ Okay.” _

And then he starts rapping, which is a surprise in itself.  Given that the first time I ever heard him sing was a cover of a sweet song about falling in love, this is so much different.

_ “So the hearse ran out of gas _

_ A passenger person grabbed a map _

_ And the driver inside it contrived a new route to save the past _

_ And checked his watch and grabbed a cab _

_ A beautifully plain taxi cab _

_ A cab _

_ Had it cleared out back and two men started to unpack _

_ Driving once again but now this time there were three men _

_ And then I heard one of them say, ‘I know the night will turn to gray _

_ ‘I know the stars will start to fade _

_ ‘When all the darkness fades away _

_ ‘We had to steal him from his fate _

_ ‘So he could see another day.’” _

He pauses here, closing his eyes and shaking his head, just a bit.  A twitch. His little twitch he does when Blurry speaks up, calls for his attention.  The twitch he does when he’s fighting his dark side.

_ “Then I cracked open my box _

_ Someone must have picked the lock _

_ A little light revealed the spot _

_ Where my fingernails had fought _

_ Then I pushed it open more _

_ Pushing up against the door _

_ Then I sat up off the floor and found the breath I was searching for _

_ Then there were three men up front _

_ All I saw were backs of heads _

_ And then I asked ‘am I alive and well or am I dreaming dead?’ _

_ Then one turned around to say _

_ ‘We’re driving toward the morning sun _

_ ‘Where all your blood is washed away _

_ ‘And all you did will be undone.’” _

He’s just crying at this point, but his voice is strong as ever, his piano playing flawless.

_ “I said _

_ Don’t be afraid _

_ I said _

_ Don’t be afraid _

_ Oh _

_ Oh _

_ Oh.” _

He finishes the song, stands up, and bows.  I’m cheering wildly until I realize that Josh’s shoulders are shaking with silent sobs.  As Tyler steps down from the platform, Josh stands and practically runs to the bathroom.

Tyler walks over to me, wiping the tears from his face.  “Hey,” he says almost breathlessly. “I was kind of...crying up there.”

“I saw,” I tell him.  “What you said at the start...that was about Josh?”

Tyler nods.  “You said he’s here.”

“He is.  He was right next to me the whole time, but he kind of started crying too.”

“What?  Really? Is he okay?”

“I don’t know,” I say, concerned.  “He’s in the bathroom if you want to try and talk to him.”

Tyler nods and runs off without another word.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I get the feeling that no one really cares about this story, so I might end up abandoning it. I have a few more chapters already written, but once I share those that might be the end of this.  
> Galaxy |-/


	14. Chapter 14

(Josh’s POV)

I manage to lock myself in one of the stalls before falling apart completely.

It was the bridge - the rapping part - that got to me.  I  _ remember  _ that, I remember sitting in the car with him on the way back to his house, I  _ remember _ when the car broke down and we had to get a cab instead, I remember everything he was talking about and I just can’t deal with it.

I hear the bathroom door open and try to pull myself together.

“Josh?”

“T-Tyler?”

“Yeah, it’s me.”  He sighs. “We haven’t talked in a while, have we?”

“Not since…since - ”

“Jenna,” Tyler supplies helpfully.

“Yeah, her,” I mutter.

“Will you come out?  I don’t like talking to you through a bathroom stall door.”

“I guess,” I say, opening the door.  And suddenly I’m face-to-face with Tyler for the first time in months.

His gaze sweeps over my face.  I know I look like I’ve been crying.  He sees it too.

“Are you okay?” He asks softly.

I look down at the floor and shake my head.  “You...you wrote that about  _ me.” _

“I write a lot about you,” Tyler says with a shrug.  When he realizes what he’s said, his eyes widen. “Sorry, I just - “

“It’s fine,” I assure him.  “A little creepy, but fine.”

He laughs at that, and I manage a smile.

“Josh, I…” Tyler bites his lip hesitantly and looks away.  “Listen, I messed up. Really badly. I’m sorry about that whole thing with Jenna, it was a mistake, and I just really miss you.”

I want to tell him I missed him, too.  I want to forgive him. He was my best friend, if only for a short time, and then I just...shut him out.  Because he  _ kissed _ someone.  He didn’t even know how I felt.  He probably had no idea why I was so upset.

So I want to forgive him.  But I don’t know if I can.

“Josh?” Tyler says hesitantly.  

I realize I haven’t talked in quite a while.  “Yeah, sorry. I don’t know. I’m sorry. I want to forgive you, but…”

I can practically hear Ruthie’s voice in my head.   _ The dance is in two weeks, ask him before someone else does!  What better time than now? _

Suddenly I get a text from none other than Ruthie.

 

_ melodic_poet: josh _

_ what’s going on? _

 

Then, of course, because she is far too invested in my relationship with Tyler - if you could call it that - she calls me.

“Ruthie, everything’s fine - “

“No, seriously, you’ve been in the bathroom for, like, fifteen minutes and you were crying, so you can’t blame me for being worried.”

“I’m just talking to Tyler - “

“Tyler?  You guys are actually talking again?”

“Sort of.”

“Joshua.  Listen to me.  There is no ‘sort of’ talking.  Either you’re talking to each other or you’re not.”

“Okay, we are talking, then.”

“About what?”

“He apologized.”  I glance at Tyler to make sure he doesn’t mind me telling Ruthie about this.  He nods reassuringly.

“Oh, really?  And are you going to forgive him?”

“I don’t know.”

“You know what I think?  You shouldn’t forgive him until he knows exactly why he has to apologize to  _ you.   _ So, you know, the thing about how you like him.”

“Fine,” I say with a sigh.  “Now, if I could just go, that’d be - “

“Yes, okay, go, but tell me everything, please, because you guys are my best friends, okay, bye!”

She hangs up and I shake my head, smiling a bit.  “You know what she’s like,” I say to Tyler.

“Endearingly insane?”

“Yeah, that’s the word.”

“So...you were saying something?”

“Yeah.  Um, I want to forgive you.  I miss you, too. But the thing is, you don’t know everything.  And I don’t know if I’m ready to tell you.”

“That’s fine,” Tyler says.  “You don’t have to tell me anything if you don’t want to.  I just want things to go back to how they were.”

“I think that’d work,” I say, smiling slightly.

Tyler smiles too, and I think it’s the first time I’ve seen him with a genuine smile on his face in a while.  It’s familiar and perfect, and for some reason I find myself wishing I could kiss him.

But I shake the thoughts away.  We’re friends again, and that’s all that matters.  I pull out my phone and text Ruthie.

 

_ jishua: all is right with the world and tyler and i are friends again _

 

_ melodic_poet: aww, just friends?  you didn’t tell him? _

 

_ jishua: no.  i’m not ready to tell him. _

 

_ melodic_poet: well, come on, get out here.  i want to chat with you guys. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's a bit shorter than usual (especially considering that the last chapter was probably one of the longest I've written), so I'm sorry about that.  
> Galaxy |-/


	15. Chapter 15

(Ruthie’s POV)

The door to the bathroom opens and Josh and Tyler step out, looking around.  I walk over to them quickly. “Thank  _ God,” _ I say, exasperated.  “Honestly, I was beginning to think you guys were just going to...ignore each other.  Like, forever.”

“You were doing the exact same thing,” Josh points out.

I glance at Tyler, remembering that Josh has no idea that he and I have been friends again for around a month.  “Sure,” I agree quickly.

“Josh!” Someone calls from across the room.

Josh turns, a smile spreading across his face.  “Leo, hey! I didn’t know you were here!”

He greets Leo, his  _ boyfriend, _ with a quick kiss, and I wince slightly - poor Tyler.

“Um, who’s this?” Tyler asks quietly.

I know he knows who Leo is perfectly well, after he saw them kiss in the lunchroom a few weeks ago.  But, of course, Josh doesn’t know that Tyler knows, and, despite what my friends might think, it’s not like I’m going to interfere in  _ this. _  So I just play along.

Leo steps forward and shakes Tyler’s hand.  “Hello, I don’t believe we’ve met. I’m Leo.”

“Tyler Joseph,” Tyler says, his voice that strained kind of polite when you don’t really like someone, but you’re trying your best to be civil.  “How do you know Josh?”

“We’re in the same music class,” Leo answers, cheerfully oblivious to Tyler’s unusually reserved attitude.  “We got to talking, and, well, I’m sure you know how the story goes. I’ve heard quite a bit about you, Tyler, and it’s wonderful to finally meet you in person.”

“You’ve heard about me?” Tyler repeats, glancing at me, then Josh.  “Like - like what?”

Leo chuckles.  “Well, actually, for the first month we were dating, I didn’t even know you existed.  But after you broke up with your girlfriend, Ruthie decided to go talk to you, and Josh mentioned something about them agreeing not to talk about you.  Naturally I was curious.”

“Oh.  Um…” Tyler looks at me, and I can see written on his face that he has some questions.  “That’s nice.”

“Anyway,” Josh interrupts, breaking the awkward silence.  “Tyler and I are friends again. Everything’s cool.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Leo says with a smile.  “And Tyler, that song of yours was absolutely amazing.  Ruthie, you too.”

“Thanks,” Tyler says quietly, staring at the ground.

“Yeah, thank you,” I repeat.  “It really means a lot to me. Tyler, could I talk to you for a minute?”

Still smiling at Leo and Josh, I grab Tyler’s arm and pull him a few steps away - that’s all it really takes to get out of earshot in such a crowded, noisy room.

“You okay?” I ask immediately.

“I didn’t realize thay were, um...still together?”  He says it almost like a question, as though he’s hoping he misinterpreted their affectionate glances and touches and their  _ literal kiss on the lips. _

“Yep,” I confirm, hoping I sound sympathetic towards him and not resentful towards Leo.  I mean, I’m not resentful or anything, but even though Tyler and Josh are friends again, everything’s still a complete mess.  “I mean, Leo’s nice enough, even if he probably wouldn’t fit in a friend group with you and me because he’s happy all the time, and I really don’t know how he does it, but - “ I cut myself off, realizing I’ve begun rambling.  “Sorry,” I say quickly. “But Josh is happy, too.”

“I can see that,” Tyler mumbles bitterly, glancing at Josh and Leo, who have wandered over to a table and are holding hands.

_ Joshua William Dun, why can’t you think for a second? _   I want to yell at him.  But he doesn’t know how Tyler feels.  Heck, at this point, I don’t even think  _ Tyler  _ knows how Tyler feels.

“Josh is happy,” I repeat, pulling Tyler’s attention back to me, “and I don’t think either of us wants to be the one to take that from him by telling him about your...um, your feelings.  Because I know then he’s going to feel guilty if he doesn’t feel the same way, and then he’s probably going to break up with Leo. But if he doesn’t feel the same way, then it’s not like he’s going to start dating you - sorry - and then he’ll just leave.  It’s probably better if we don’t say anything.”

“Right,” Tyler says quietly, not really sounding like he believes it.  

“It  _ is _ right, Tyler!” I almost yell before wincing and lowering my voice.  “Listen, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Josh more upset than the time between seeing you kissing Jenna and when he started dating Leo.  I don’t  _ ever _ plan on seeing him like that again, and I’m going to need your help ensuring that it doesn’t happen, okay?”

“But what about me?” Tyler asks.  “Am I just going to have to - to sit back and watch Josh and this guy together, every single day, because you’re worried Josh would be sad if I left again?  He doesn’t need me anymore, Ruthie. But I need him more than anything.”

“Well, no one’s ever needed me,” I snap.  “But I still stick around on the tiniest chance that someday they might.  I’m asking you to do the same, at least for a little while. For  _ Josh.” _

I’m trying to appeal to those feelings that I know he still has.  That’s why he’s so upset. It’s odd, I never figured he’d be one to get jealous.  But I know he still feels something for Josh, and if it’s real, wouldn’t he want Josh to be happy?

“Okay,” Tyler says at last, and I relax.  “I’ll stay. For Josh.”

“I know it’s going to hurt,” I tell him, “but it’ll get better.  I promise, Tyler, it will.”

“Let’s just go talk to Josh and Leo.”

I debate for a moment whether or not I should tell him about how Josh felt.  But it doesn’t matter, at least, not anymore. Josh clearly doesn’t feel that way anymore, and even if he did, it’s not my secret to tell.  Josh gets to decide if Tyler ever finds out at all, and if so, he gets to decide how and when.

Although, at this point I almost hope it’s never, because I don’t even want to imagine how Tyler would feel if he found out that he missed his chance because of Jenna.

Leo and Josh greet us quickly before turning back to a conversation they’re having about alternate universes.  It reminds me of Josh and Tyler's conversations they used to have, before everything changed, and Tyler smiles at me sadly.  I know exactly what he’s trying to say without any words at all.

_ I wish it was me. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's getting angsty again, sorry :)  
> Galaxy |-/


	16. Chapter 16

“Hello, Ruthie.  Long time no see.”

I freeze immediately upon hearing  _ her. _

It really has been a long time.

I’d decided - foolishly, looking back - to leave the talent show early.  I was tired, Leo had been forced to go elsewhere and socialize, and Josh and Tyler had a lot of catching up to do.  My parents and my brother are still there. I’m alone.

Except I’m not, because she’s here.

Other than little comments here and there, she hasn’t shown her face in months.

So  _ why tonight? _  Why?  When I should be on top of the world?  I just played a song that  _ I wrote _ for my entire school.  I should be delighted.

It’s hard to be delighted when Blurryface is here.

“Are you just going to stand there looking like an idiot?” She snaps.  “Come on. Talk to me.”

“No,” I say, squeezing my eyes shut and shaking my head as if that could somehow drive her away.  “No, you’re only going to hurt me.”

“Everyone’s going to be judging you,” she reminds me.  “Those lyrics... _ ouch. _  Talk about getting too personal.”

“The best songs are a little too personal for society’s standards,” I counter.

“In your opinion,” Blurry points out.  “No one else thinks the same way you do.  That’s why you’re such an outcast. What you said earlier was right.  No one has ever needed you.”

“You need me,” I mutter.  “You’re in my head, right?  You wouldn’t be here if I was dead.”

“Yes, but you hate me.”

“True.  Your point?”

“Would you rather no one needed you, or the one person you hate the most was the only one?”

I don’t reply to that.

“Well, good night, sleep tight, and at least  _ try _ to fight your insecurities once in a while.  I’m getting bored of winning so easily.”

And with that, she’s gone.

 

“You okay?” Tyler asks as we sit in Math the next day.

“What?”  I glance up from what I’m drawing.  Drawing when I’m not really paying attention has proved to be a mistake - my drawings, just like many of my lyrics, tend to get dark.

I shift my notebook to hide my rough sketch of Blurry, with her wicked smile, dark eyes, and a bloody knife held to her neck in a silent threat.  “Yeah, I’m...fine.”

“You’re wearing that hair tie on your wrist again,” Tyler observes quietly.

“Softball starts soon,” I say, a little too defensively.  “I’ll need to put my hair up, won’t I?”

Tyler still looks doubtful, but he doesn’t push it.

I yawn and glance at the clock.  How can it only be ten o’clock?

Maybe it just feels later because I was up all night.  I couldn’t get to sleep.

“Ruthie!”

I snap out of my dazed, half-asleep state when I hear Josh whisper-yelling at me.

“What is it?” I ask, sounding a bit more annoyed than necessary.

“I was just going to ask what’s going on, but you didn’t hear me.”

“I’m fine, Josh.”

With one last doubtful glance at me, Josh turns his attention back to our teacher.

“‘Fine?’” Blurry mocks from where she’s sitting behind me.  “That’s what you’re going with? If you want to lie, at least make it a little more convincing.”

“You’ve always wanted me dead,” I mutter through gritted teeth.  “Well, here I am, dying. On the inside, at least. The outside follows not long after.  You should be happy.”

“Oh, I am,” Blurry says darkly, her words more of a growl than anything else.  “Trust me, sweetie, I’m  _ delighted. _  I just want to be there to deliver the killing blow, so no rush.”

It’s incredible - terrifying, yes, but also incredible - just how easily I can slip back into a dark hole that I had to fight so hard to get out of in the first place.  This sort of thing has happened to me before, short bursts of feeling terrible, and it’s always been a battle to feel okay again.

I’ve made it every time before.  I can only hope this one won’t be too different.

But then again, hope doesn’t do much in the long run.  Hope can’t change events outside of your control. I can hope all I want that the weather might be sunny during lunch so I can eat outside, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to happen.

At this point, my mind feels like that.  I can hope and hope and  _ hope _ that I’ll make it through, but in the end, I can’t know until it happens.

 

I hope it happens soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i rarely update so quickly but shit guys i really need to talk to someone right now except none of my irl friends are around and they wouldn't even understand i'm sorry i don't know what it is i've been feeling terrible all week and i was doing so well for months i was doing fine and now everything's fallen apart again and this has happened before but i don't think it's ever been this bad  
> i just can't be alone right now. you don't even have to do anything i just need someone to talk to because i can't be alone  
> go here to talk off of ao3: https://discord.gg/ebSKEtN  
> Galaxy |-/


	17. Chapter 17

(Josh’s POV)

“Have you noticed that Ruthie’s acting a bit...odd?”

I nod, weaving through the after-school crowd in the hallways with Leo by my side.  “Yeah, exactly. I’m not sure she slept that well last night, she’s been zoning out all day.  Tyler was kind of the same when I first met him, and he wasn’t sleeping at all.”

I leave out the fact that it was because of Blurryface, and that Tyler’s suicide attempt wasn’t that long afterwards.  That can’t be what’s happening here - neither Ruthie nor Tyler have mentioned Blurryface in months, and Ruthie’s had her issues but I’ve never heard her say anything about being suicidal.  So that can’t be it.

Right?

“Should we say something about it?” Leo asks.

“If she wants to talk, she will,” Josh says, shaking his head.  “Sometimes you’ve got to push her a little bit, but most of the time, if something’s bothering her, she’ll say so.”

“And…” Leo hesitates, as though he wants to ask something else, but isn’t sure if he should.  “What’s up with Tyler?”

“Tyler?” I glance at him out of the corner of my eye as we finally leave the school and start walking home.  “I think he’s okay. What about him? Have you noticed anything?”

“You two just seem...very close.”

“Leo, are you jealous?”

“No!  Of course I’m not jealous!” Leo protests.  “But he seems to like you.”

“There’s nothing going on between me and Tyler,” I assure him.

I thought once that there was, but clearly not.  Any hopes of that were destroyed when Tyler kissed Jenna, and maybe he broke up with her for being homophobic, but still.  The fact that he kissed her when I thought he might have feelings for me should be enough to prove that he never did.

Leo seems to relax a bit.  “I just wanted to make sure.”

“You have nothing to worry about,” I tell him.

Although, with Tyler back, is that really true?

 

The next day, Ruthie shows up to our first class five minutes late.  She’s hardly ever late to anything.

Since it’s the first time, the teacher accepts her apology and tells her to sit down.

The day after that, she’s ten minutes late.  The teacher eyes her suspiciously as she enters.

By the end of two weeks, Ruthie barely manages to arrive in time for the last fifteen minutes of class.  The dark circles under her eyes are more pronounced than they were the day before.

“I’m so sorry I’m late,” I hear her mumble to the teacher, who sighs.

“Just go sit down and ask someone to tell you what we’re working on.”

She nods and hurries over to a spot between Tyler and me.  “Hey,” she mutters to me. “Can you explain what’s on the board?”

I nod and start to tell Ruthie what we’ve talked about so far in class.  My gaze lingers for a few seconds on her long sleeves. After that outfit at the talent show, where almost everyone saw her scars, what reason would she have to hide them?  She’s mostly been wearing short sleeves since then. I wonder if everything’s okay.

I don’t want to push it in class, though, so I say nothing and decide it can wait.

At recess, I manage to find her writing in the library.  “What’s going on?” I ask.

Ruthie looks up at me, closing her notebook.  “What do you mean?” Her voice is as calm and controlled as ever.

“I can tell you haven’t been sleeping,” I say.  “And you’re wearing long sleeves again.”

Ruthie sighs and shakes her head, cursing under her breath.  “Not in here. Let’s go outside.”

I follow her just outside the library, and she turns to me.  “Look, I know you’re worried - “

“Worried?” I interrupt.  “That doesn’t even begin to describe it.”

She sighs again.  “I’m fine.”

“You always say that, but for the first few months I knew you, you were dealing with a demon in your head that was telling you to kill yourself.”

“Josh, I’m fine,” Ruthie repeats harshly.  “Can we stop talking about this, please? Everything is fine.”

“Is Blurryface back?”

Ruthie’s gaze hardens.  “I told you I’m fine,” she says through gritted teeth.  “Leave me alone.”

Reluctantly, I do.

 

“Tyler?  I think you should talk to Ruthie.”

“Why?” Tyler asks, sounding surprised.

“There’s something going on with her,” I explain, biting my lip.  “I’m worried. She said she was okay, and I mentioned Blurryface, and - “

“You mentioned Blurryface?” Tyler interrupts, stopping in his tracks and turning to face me.  “Why would you do that?”

“I thought - you know, she doesn’t seem like she’s been sleeping and she’s wearing long sleeves again and I’m just worried that she might be back.”

Tyler shakes his head incredulously.  “You’ve got no idea how hard it is to talk about that sort of thing.  What did she say?”

“She just kind of freaked out and told me to leave her alone,” I say.  “I’m so sorry, I didn’t realize - “

“No, I know you wouldn’t say anything unless you were really worried,” Tyler assures me.  “So you think I should talk to her about it?”

I nod.

Tyler chews his lip.  “I’m not sure how she’ll react.”

“But what if something really is wrong?” I insist.

“Fine,” Tyler says at last.  “I guess I’ll talk to her. But how do I even bring it up?”

“Ask her why she’s been showing up late every day?” I suggest.

Tyler nods.  “Okay. I’ll ask her tomorrow morning.”

I smile, relieved that he agreed.  If Ruthie isn’t going to talk to me, maybe she’ll talk to Tyler.

Even when I first met her, she wasn’t like this.  I don’t know what to do. I hope Tyler knows.

If he doesn’t…

I don’t want to think too hard about it, but I’m worried that it’ll be like what happened to Tyler all over again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The day after I posted the previous chapter, my parents actually found out about my self-harm and I was forced to come out to them before I was ready. I've started going to therapy and stuff but I still feel like shit. We also found out that we're moving at the end of June, and I have a lot going on in school. All of that put together means I won't have quite as much time to update this. 
> 
> Anyway, I hope you're all doing well and if you need to talk to someone, you can talk to me. I started running a discord server that's just to help anyone that needs it, this link should work: https://discord.gg/xwJ5Tfx  
> Stay alive.  
> Galaxy |-/


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys...there are some really serious themes of self-harm and suicide in this chapter. Both implied and described in detail. If that triggers you in any way, please don’t read this chapter.  
> Galaxy |-/

(Ruthie’s POV)

“Why can’t you just leave me alone?” I ask, slamming my bedroom door behind me and turning to glare at Blurry.

“Why can’t you just stop living?” She counters.  “We can’t always get what we want, Ruthie. You of all people should know that.  Remember last time?”

“We agreed never to talk about that again,” I say through gritted teeth.

“Empty promises, sweetie,” Blurry says, wandering far too innocently over to my desk.  “You wanted it to work  _ so  _ badly, but it didn’t.  Why? Because you’re a failure.”

“I have Tyler and Josh now,” I tell her firmly.  “And even Leo, too. But Tyler and Josh, they know about you.  They know you’re here. They can protect me.”

“But they aren’t here now.”

“I can call them.”

“You’d never tell them that I’m back.”

I start snapping the hair tie on my wrist almost obsessively, over and over again, thinking of Josh drumming to the beat of his heart in the recording of the song we wrote, or Tyler’s rhythmic ukulele strumming as he plays, or the scratching of pencil on paper.  Of things that can calm me down.

“That hair tie isn’t going to be enough this time.”

“It’s been enough in the past.”

“It wasn’t enough yesterday.”

“Yesterday was an exception,” I protest, my voice rising.

“Was two years ago an exception as well?”

“Shut up!” I yell, pressing my hands over my ears.  “I don’t want to talk about that!”

“Do you want me to leave?” Blurry asks.

I know she has a plan, but I’m too upset to care.  I just want her gone, in the same way that she just wants me dead.

Against my better judgement, I nod.

“You know what gets me to go away,” Blurry whispers, a stark contrast between my shouts and her soft voice, before drawing something out of my desk and handing it to me.

My craft knife.

I glance at her doubtfully for a moment.

“You want to feel better, don’t you?”

I nod again, not trusting myself to speak.

“You know it’ll help.”

I don’t even nod this time.

I pull up my sleeves, immediately seeing all my old scars as well as the partially-healed cuts from yesterday.  I feel almost sick.

But I’m sure I want to do this.  Blurry leaves for almost twenty-four hours if I do it right.

Gently pressing the blade of the knife to my wrist, I make the first cut.  Pain disappears amidst relief, relief from all the tension, the worry, the stress.

But Blurry doesn’t fade.

I make another cut, then another, then another, and still her voice is as loud as ever.

“Why aren’t you leaving?” I mutter, not caring to take my eyes off of the blood dripping down my arm.

“Because you haven’t cut deep enough,” Blurry replies matter-of-factly.

And we continue like this for what feels like an eternity, Blurry encouraging me to make my cuts deeper, longer, more and more painful, and me listening to her and obeying every word.

Before long, my arm is a complete mess, covered in blood and stinging cuts.

“One more?” Blurry suggest with a wicked grin.

I nod, feeling dizzy, and begin to make the last cut.

Blurry grabs the hand holding the knife and pulls it down, making the cut far deeper than I’d intended it to be.

It takes a moment for me to realize through the strange haze I feel settling over my mind that I’m probably going to die.

It takes me another moment to realize that I don’t think I’d really mind dying.

So I decide against calling or texting Tyler and Josh.  I’ll leave them a note. That’s better. They won’t find it until I’m gone.

This wasn’t how I thought my evening was going to go, but I don’t think it could’ve turned out better.  I guess I was going to do this eventually.

Shakily, in barely legible handwriting, I begin to write out my blood-stained suicide note.

 

_ To Tyler and Josh _

_ You guys were always there for me but Blurry wins in the end _

_ I hope you don’t miss me too much.  You were such good friends to me and no matter what comes next, I’ll remember how much you helped me _

_ -Ruthie _

 

I drop the pen from my shaking, twitching fingers, reminded of Tyler and his performance at the talent show.

I close my eyes.  I get to spend my last moments completely free of Blurryface.

And that’s all I’ve ever wanted.

I want to go to sleep now.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mentions of suicide.

It was quiet at the end.

Death isn’t the way we see it in the movies.  It isn’t always screaming and crying and ‘I don’t want to leave you.’  Sometimes it’s a quiet funeral with a family that never really cared, and a boy with hair re-dyed to its old vibrant red that  _ she _ had commented on when they’d first met, clutching the hand of a quieter boy with brown hair and scars on his wrist to match those on the arm of the girl in the coffin, because they both need the support and perhaps the red-haired boy’s old boyfriend had broken up with him the night before they found out about the girl’s death and he’d turned to his best friend because now he had no one else to turn to.

Suicide, everyone called it.  But they knew better. They knew that the girl wasn’t herself when she picked up the craft knife that had been found next to her body.  They had read the suicide note. They knew that the girl hadn’t wanted this, not really. She just wanted the demon in her head to  _ get out. _

Neither of the boys got up to speak.  They listened to the words of family and so-called ‘friends’ that had never really known her.  They learned, for the first time, of her first suicide attempt two years ago, and of her family’s regret that they hadn’t seen the warning signs this time around.

Neither of them cried at the funeral.

But they both cried after.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry. I know I'm a terrible person.
> 
> Huge thanks to fear_her_blurryface for being amazingly supportive throughout this whole thing. I don't think I could have done it without you, friend.
> 
> Feel free to yell at me about this in the comments, and if you ever, EVER feel like you want to hurt yourself in any way, please tell someone. You can always talk to me if you need someone.  
> I care about you all.  
> Galaxy |-/


	20. UPDATE

Hey, frens.

First of all, the hiatus is over and twenty one pilots is posting on Twitter again!  Isn't that amazing?

Second of all, I've been thinking about this story all week and I decided that I couldn't bear to just end it.  I'll be writing some one-shots of moments outside of the story, whether that's stuff that happened before, stuff that happens after, or just scenes inside the story that we didn't get to see.  It just didn't feel right to leave it all behind like that, you know?

Anyway, stay alive and feel free to talk to me if you need advice or just someone to vent to.

Galaxy |-/


	21. Update

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is going to be the last update, I swear.

Hey!  I promise this will be the last update, frens.  

I made a Discord server for people that follow some of my fics, like this one, You Can Call Me Blurry, Dark Stranger, and my most popular fic, The World Around Us Is Burning But We're So Cold.  Basically, you can discuss the fics, theories you have, and all sorts of things.  If I really like you, I'll give you a special role that gives you access to channels where I'll be sharing my ideas and some previews for the stories... ;)

Basically, I'd love it if you joined!  It's always fun to talk to people and hear their opinions on my stories.  You're all wonderful and I hope to see you on the server sometime soon :)

Bye, frens.

Galaxy ||-//


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